This book traces the involvement of American vernacular music in the European art concert music tradition from the early twentieth-century, through the period of incorporating blue, jazz and art music into the present period of melding between rap and art music culture. It reveals the composers’ perspectives toward their fusion of compositional techniques and structural construction, and the influences that might lead to our understanding of their music. Many recent studies of 20th century music have emphasized only one aspect of musical tradition, that is, either art or popular music, and very little has been written about the cross-over in analytical descriptions of musical material, particularly in the late 20th and 21st centuries. This book is structured in such a way as to be useful to undergraduate and post-graduate students, scholars, and performing musicians, as well as to other serious music lovers. The book not only fills a gap in the understanding the fusion of pop and art music through analysis, and by examining cultural and social influences, but it also fills a void by discussing compositions written in the early 21st century by a younger generation of composers.