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New Age is still too young and stylistically inchoate for any assessment of its ultimate worth. But its appeal is wide. "I wouldn't be surprised if some farmer in Iowa listens to George Winston while plowing his fields," says Keith Eckerling, a record-store-chain vice president in Chicago. And its possibilities are promising. In multiracial, heavily Asian California, an authentic fusion of Oriental and Occidental music has been under way since Composer Lou Harrison experimented with the Balinese gamelan orchestra before World War II. And the healthy interaction between the rock and "classical" avant-gardes, which bore fruit a decade ago in the creative synergy between Tangerine Dream and minimalist composers like Philip Glass, may produce more music of lasting value, just as when jazz first captured the imaginations of composers like Ravel and Gershwin. Whatever happens, it will be a step up from Wham! and Ozzy Osbourne. "New Age fans don't want to feel they are mellowing out," says Howard Wuelfing, a New Age distributor in New Jersey. "Just maturing."