Though this year it only lasted five days instead of ten, i came away from the 2021 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival with the distinct impression that, somehow, the usual quantity of music had been compressed into a reduced time frame. That’s not, mercifully, because of any attempt to shoehorn many…

Having not set foot in the place for two years – which by now feels like an absolute aeon – i’m setting off today for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, where i’ll (hopefully) be happily immersed for the next few days. Words to follow once i get back next week.

How have i never heard the music of Aleksandra Gryka before? That’s the question i’ve kept wondering while exploring Interialcell, a new CD featuring five works of hers performed by Klangforum Wien. It’s left me disappointed at making what is, for me, such a very late discovery (her worklist goes…

Some composers you encounter all the time; others not so much. i’ve only come into contact with Marcin Stańczyk‘s music on one occasion: back in 2017, at the UK première of some drops… for double-bell trumpet and ensemble. Until, that is, just recently, when i began immersing myself in a…

i’ve written previously about my love of large-scale compositions, so it’s been fascinating to spend time with Temp Tracks, the latest album by Austrian composer Wolfgang Mitterer, which explores music at the opposite end of the continuum. Taking its title from the film scoring practice of using extant music as…

Let’s get static – or, at least, steady static. The latest collaborative work from Rohan Drape & Anthony Pateras, The traces of a mistake, the most simple one possible the reactions of even younger children, could be regarded as a development of the processes explored on their outstanding 2018 album…

EDIT: It’s been brought to my attention that my sense of the passing of the seasons is evidently completely out of whack, as the autumnal equinox in fact happened almost a month ago. Yes, i now feel very stupid. Still, everything i say here about Helen Grime’s piece remains entirely…

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…