Computer art originated in the 1950s and 1960s. There is an abundance of Western and Soviet studies and experiments devoted to algorithmization and modeling of the creative process. However, in the domestic research space there are no works devoted to the emergence of the phenomenon of computer choreography and the specifics of this concept. Based on the methods of analysis and comparison of sources, the article reveals the specifics of the interpretation of the concept of «computer choreography», describes the first experiments of J. Beaman and A. M. Noll with computer choreography and vectors of their development in the modern period. As a result, the main directions of the development of computer (digital) choreography are determined: the creation of «machine» dances without human creative participation, the use of computer capabilities to stimulate human imagination, the development of software for composing and fixing choreography and for generating interaction between choreography, lighting, music, space design in real time. However, as at the time of the emergence of computer choreography, in our time, the question of the goals of integrating technological innovations into the artistic process is still relevant.

   Computer-digital technology has been actively developed since the second half of the 20th century. Nowadays, penetrating into the sphere of artistic creation, they are finding application, including choreographic art. Enriching the dance practices with technical innovations, the digital technologies have an impact not only on the development of choreographic art, but also on the audience perception. Through the analysis of some production works of choreographers, dance artists and performers, the author tries to estimate the total amount of improvisation in the analyzed interactive VR performances. The author concludes that VR technologies open the ways for choreographers to implement their creative experiments in different interdisciplinary projects, thus facilitating the emergence of new (including improvisational) choreographic forms. By extending the boundaries of perception, virtual reality technologies immerse the audience into the process, turning them from a bystander into a co-creator of virtual-choreographic action.

   The study is devoted to the deconstruction of the semantics of musical quotations in the film The House That Jack Built (2018) by the outstanding Danish director L. von Trier. A comprehensive analysis of the film text is based on the ideas of deconstruction by the French philosopher J. Derrida, as well as on the author’s method of Trier – digressionism (cinematograph of digressions). The result of the interaction of complex intertextual links between the open film text of The House That Jack Built and other texts of culture was the emergence of the so-called ‘third meanings’. To achieve this goal, Trier resorts to various methods of working with extensive musical and visual quotation material. Quotations acquire new meanings and translate them to the video using the means of film language (vertical montage, montage of attractions, sound-visual counterpoint, representation of time) and the method of deconstruction (destruction, reconstruction, deformation, self-quotations).

   The article is devoted to folk musical instruments and traditions of performance in Southern Dagestan, which largely determine the features of instrumental creativity of representatives of the modern school of composition. From the author’s point of view, folk instrumental music of South Dagestanis reached its peak during the period of oral professionalism. The numerous musical instruments of Southern Dagestan, testifies to a rich and distinctive culture, which has its own regional characteristics. Valuable sources for determining the tools are not only ethnographic works, scientific publications, but also poetic stanzas from classical poetry. The author’s research interest is also focused on the traditional ensemble composition of musicians, their characteristic forms of music-making are determined. Special attention is paid to the musical practice of ashugs, in the performance of which there are several types of tunes. The author of the article concludes that traditional musical performance reflects the personal qualities of musicians, their worldview, traditions and customs.

   The article raises the problems of creative rethinking of the timbre of the flute in modern performing practice on the example of arrangements of Rakhmaninov’s romances. The new characteristic roles of the flute, which were the result of bold experiments by instrumentalists of the second half of the 20th and especially the 21st century, expanded its capabilities as a cantilever and sensual instrument, establishing invisible bridges to the works of Debussy, Gluck, and from there to the ancient art of the mellifluous Orpheus. The author focuses on a number of Rachmaninov`s vocal compositions and, above all, on Vocalise as the highest achievement of the romance lyrics of the great romantic. Some aspects of melody, harmony and musical texture are analyzed, the multifaceted possibilities of which make it possible to transpose romances for flute accompanied by an orchestra or piano, potentially programming the disclosure of new facets of their musical images. The author comes to the conclusion that the timbre of the flute can create or enhance a certain emotional background of the work, bring a dramatic effect, and also compete in sound with the cantilena of the human voice. In turn, compositions with rich figurative content, complex in texture and harmony, which, with skillful intonation of the vocal part, will create performing interpretations with a deep artistic effect, can serve as material for flute arrangements.

   The article will examine Glass’s early operas Einstein, Satyagraha, Akhnaten, united by the composer into a trilogy. The author will focus on patterns aimed at creating a new form of play for the opera genre — a performance art. Interpretation of the viewer as an accomplice of artistic events; an immersion technique necessary to immerse the viewer in a simulated reality, where the boundaries between the real and the artistic world are erased; modeling a liminal situation — these and other properties of performance significantly change the opera genre from the inside. As a result of analytical observations, the authors of the article come to the conclusion that the inclusion of the regularities of performance art in Glass’s opera trilogy Einstein, Satyagraha, Akhnaten contributes to the emergence of an original interpretation of the genre that shakes academic foundations, the study of which is impossible without an understanding of aesthetics and performativity theory.

   The article analyzes the early period of creativity of the Austrian composer Bernhard Lang (1957), whose unique artistic method absorbed both the foundations of the philosophy of postmodernism: Deleuze, Derrida and Bergson, as well as the ideas of experimental cinema — Martin Arnold and the literary concepts of the “broken generation” of William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, along with musical phenomena marginalized by the academic avant-garde tradition, such as jazz, free improvisation, techno or progressive rock of the seventies. The analytical focus is on writings that are in one way or another connected with the English literature of the beatnik generation. The final section concludes that the interest in automatic writing, in order to penetrate the musical essence of the unconscious, as well as the “obsession” with a repeating acoustic freeze frame and the subsequent musical embodiment of Deleuz’s concept of Difference / Repetition in Lang’s work fit into a special digital perspective of the musical minimalism.

   The article highlights a little–studied fact of S. P. Diaghilev’s creative biography relating to the Perm period of his life — his writing of the romance «Do you remember, Maria» based on the poem of A. K. Tolstoy. For the first time, an analysis of an unpublished manuscript of the romance, which is currently the only surviving work of Diaghilev, is presented. The history of the creation of the composition, its figurative content and features of the musical language are considered. Musical examples are given. The author comes to the conclusion that professional education and composing skills played a significant role in Diaghilev’s subsequent activities.

   The work considers the historical and theoretical aspects of the problem of the formation and development of the African American disco-funk style in the context of the pop culture of the USA in the last third of the 20th century, by analyzing musicological literature and compositions, the prerequisites for its formation are investigated and specific genre and style features of disco-funk that arose in the harmonious union of music and dance are revealed. The work unfolds a picture of the historical development of the disco-funk style in the context of genre-style changes in pop music of Western countries, as well as general socio-cultural trends of the second half of the twentieth century, characteristic of the United States and European countries. In the process of studying the history of the formation of disco-funk, it was revealed that the style has its roots in the distant past of African American culture and is associated with the development of not only jazz, but also pop music of the USA of the 20th century. The emergence of disco-funk was facilitated by certain socio-cultural events and circumstances. At the same time, the theme of disco-funk songs, addressed mainly to black audiences, reflected the new social status of African Americans, which developed by the 1970s, when African American men and women stood firmly on their land, fought for their rights and truly became equal members of American society. Disco-funk sincerely and boldly touched on the problems that blacks have faced in America for centuries, reflected the national mentality of African Americans and depicted the picture of the universe from the point of view of black US citizens.

   The article is devoted to the analysis of the genre of piano transcription in the work of the outstanding pianist, piano teacher, composer, public figure Alexander Danilovich Kamensky (1900–1952), who played an important role both in the development of Russian pianism and in the concert life of the war era. Having created a number of bright and original examples of the genre of transcription, Kamensky continues the tradition rooted in the era of romanticism. The article analyzes the transcriptions of Albéniz’s Navarra, the Introduction and intermission to the fourth act of the opera Carmen in a free concert arrangement by A. Kamensky, as well as the Fantasy Suite The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov – A. D. Kamensky. The article defines terminological differences in the designation of the transcription genre: paraphrase, concert arrangement, fantasy, etc. The pedagogical and educational value of A. D. Kamensky. The conclusion from the study is that in the work of A. D. Kamensky, it was piano transcription that played a special role. His popularization mission, guided by which the pianist held many performances, including about five hundred concerts in besieged besieged Leningrad, was decisive for him. Under those conditions, the impossibility of the permanent functioning of musical theaters and orchestras was partially compensated by the possibilities of piano transcription.