The other recent release of Icelandic music that i’ve been spending time with lately is Ethereality, by flautist Berglind María Tómasdóttir (whose Icelandic Flute Music album i explored at the start of the year). When writing about Anna Þorvaldsdóttir’s Enigma i commented on the way the distinction between the different…

i’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately with two interesting recent releases of Icelandic music. The first is a short album (an EP really) featuring a string quartet by Anna Þorvaldsdóttir titled Enigma. The first thing that struck me, long before actually listening to the music, is that it’s…

In addition to the soundwalks, installations, music theatre, performance art and electroacoustic shenanigans, Ultima 2021 also had its fair share of more conventional ensemble concerts, which took place in two Oslo churches. The beautiful Tøyen Kirke played host to two of Norway’s most prominent new music ensembles, asamisimasa and Cikada.

Not everything i heard at Ultima 2021 was bound up in convolutions of meaning. Ryoji Ikeda‘s forays into the world of percussion (which i previously explored in 2018) are a sidestep away from his more central work in multi-layered representations and interpretations of data, instead concerned much more directly with…

For the new 5:4 mixtape, apropos of nothing in particular, i’ve chosen fire as the theme. (Perhaps subconsciously i was reflecting on the fact that the days are getting colder…) As always, the mix draws on a diverse collection of tracks that in some way reference fire, charting a journey…

The saying goes that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, but in the case of the Ultima festival in Oslo, the latter half of which i experienced last week, i don’t think i truly realised how much i’d missed contemporary music festivals until i was back in…

Two weeks have passed since this year’s Proms season came to an end, so it’s time to take a look at how you responded to each of the new works in the annual 5:4 Proms première polls. i want to thank all of you who voted; there was a healthy-sized…

First thing this morning – assuming i’ve completed all the right forms and done all the right tests and can present all the right results in all the right ways – i’m setting off for Norway to catch the second half of this year’s Ultima festival in Oslo. Back next…

The last time i wrote about a Birmingham Contemporary Music Group concert, i began the article with an observation, a complaint and a plea; this time, i’m starting with a shock and a nice surprise. The shock comes from the realisation that that previous concert took place no fewer than…

What is there left to say about the Last Night of the Proms, a.k.a “Now That’s What I Call Classical Music”? Less a concert than a party, for many years now the occasion has begun with a première, presumably intended to act as a champagne cork ‘pop’ to get things…

The penultimate première of this year’s Proms took place yesterday evening, in the form of a short, entertaining concert-opener courtesy of South Korean composer Unsuk Chin. Composed last year as part of the commemorations marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Chin’s Subito con forza flirts with a number of…

As i may have said previously, i have a love-hate relationship with film scores. Being something of a movie addict, i’m obviously encountering them all the time, and at their best, i adore how they don’t merely accompany the on-screen drama but contain their own distinctive parallel narrative, interesting in…

Until i began spending time with George Benjamin‘s new Concerto for Orchestra, given its first performance at last Monday’s Prom concert, i hadn’t realised how tired i’d become with narrative. Not that there’s anything wrong or even problematic about the concepts and conceits that have festooned each of the new…

Last Friday brought the first UK performance of the shortest, and by far the simplest, of this year’s Proms premières, Charlotte Bray‘s Where Icebergs Dance Away. Coming in the wake of some highly complex new works (none more so than George Lewis’ Minds in Flux) this was rather refreshing. In…

A word that rarely comes to mind when listening to Proms premières is “brave”. Bravery in music, to me, involves a demonstration of the composer’s singular vision to the extent that many, even all, of the expectations that i may bring to the piece as a listener are ignored, overturned,…

The second half of tomorrow evening’s BBC Symphony Orchestra Prom concert opens with the first UK performance of Where Icebergs Dance Away, by British composer Charlotte Bray. In preparation for that, here are her answers to my pre-première questions, along with the programme note for the piece. Many thanks to…

Tomorrow night’s Prom concert brings together music by Beethoven and the première of Minds in Flux, a 30-minute electroacoustic work by US composer George Lewis. As an upbeat to that, here are his answers to my pre-première questions, together with his programme for the piece. Many thanks to George for…

More Proms premières, more demands that composers must ‘respond’ to existing music. Perhaps by now the Proms organisers regard this approach as an integral, even defining, part of its commissioning strategy, but it demonstrates a complete lack of faith and trust in composers to forge their own unique conceptions from…

Five years ago i was getting excited by an album of orchestral music by a Chinese composer previously unknown to me, Xiaogang Ye. That excitement has been rekindled recently by the coincidentally-timed release of three new albums of Ye’s music in the last few weeks, which together provide an excellent…

This evening’s Prom concert, in addition to new works from Bernard Hughes and Nico Muhly, features the world première of Aetherworld by UK composer Shiva Feshareki. It’s a rare and very welcome instance of an electroacoustic work of contemporary music at the Proms, and in preparation for it here are Shiva’s answers…