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5:4
CD/Digital releases

Tālivaldis Ķeniņš – Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8

by 5:4 May 19, 2022 • 17:01 2 comments

New Estonian Chamber / Choral / Orchestral Music

by 5:4 May 16, 2022 • 16:29 0 comment

Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 4)

by 5:4 May 9, 2022 • 09:52 0 comment
FestivalsPremières

Estonian Music Days 2022 (Interlude / Part 3)

by 5:4 May 5, 2022 • 05:00 0 comment

Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 2)

by 5:4 May 2, 2022 • 05:00 0 comment

Gigs, gigs, gigs: Proms 2022

by 5:4 April 29, 2022 • 09:59 0 comment
FestivalsPremières

Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 1)

by 5:4 April 28, 2022 • 16:51 0 comment

Fermata Eesti

by 5:4 April 17, 2022 • 05:00 0 comment

Helena Tulve – Lament (World Première)

by 5:4 April 16, 2022 • 05:00 1 comment
Lent SeriesPremières

James MacMillan – The Keening (World Première)

by 5:4 April 13, 2022 • 05:00 0 comment

Arash Yazdani – Nakba (World Première)

by 5:4 April 9, 2022 • 16:36 0 comment

Chaya Czernowin – Black Flowers

by 5:4 April 5, 2022 • 05:00 0 comment

more articles

  • CD/Digital releases

    Tālivaldis Ķeniņš – Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8

    by 5:4 May 19, 2022 • 17:01
    May 19, 2022 • 17:01

    A long-standing interest of mine is exploring symphonies by composers i’ve never heard of. Apropos: Tālivaldis Ķeniņš, who until relatively recently i didn’t know was one of Latvia’s foremost 20th century composers. However, Ķeniņš was arguably as much Canadian as Latvian; after Russia re-occupied Latvia during World War II, Ķeniņš…

    Read more
  • CD/Digital releases

    New Estonian Chamber / Choral / Orchestral Music

    by 5:4 May 16, 2022 • 16:29
    May 16, 2022 • 16:29

    As an appendix to my coverage of this year’s Estonian Music Days, i want to highlight three new anthologies of Estonian contemporary music. Focusing on chamber, choral and orchestral music respectively, and featuring a diverse collection of ensembles and vocal groups, they complement and expand upon a previous series of…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 4)

    by 5:4 May 9, 2022 • 09:52
    May 9, 2022 • 09:52

    A disconcerting aspect of some of the pieces performed at this year’s Estonian Music Days was the extent to which their material, language and / or behaviour was obviously begged, borrowed and / or stolen from heavily-worn musical conventions, to the point of outright cliché. This was especially apparent in…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Interlude / Part 3)

    by 5:4 May 5, 2022 • 05:00
    May 5, 2022 • 05:00

    In addition to conventional acoustic and electronic music, there was the opportunity to explore a variety of audiovisual work during my time in Tallinn. This was primarily due to COMMUTE, a fringe festival run by the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, with late evening concerts each day, after the…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 2, 2022 • 05:00
    May 2, 2022 • 05:00

    The smallest-scale events at this year’s Estonian Music Days were a pair of chamber concerts at each end of the festival. Irina Zahharenkova’s keyboard recital at the Arvo Pärt Centre encompassed extremes of musical invention. The most egregious were two works dating from the early 1990s by a Russian guitarist…

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  • AnnouncementsFestivals

    Gigs, gigs, gigs: Proms 2022

    by 5:4 April 29, 2022 • 09:59
    April 29, 2022 • 09:59

    This year’s Proms season has been announced in the last few days, and alongside all the standard fare, there’s the usual small smattering of contemporary music to get mildly excited about. Scanning through the programme, the most immediate thing that leapt out was familiarity, even predictability, the festival in general…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 April 28, 2022 • 16:51
    April 28, 2022 • 16:51

    Even before my plane touched down at Tallinn airport, i knew that this year’s Estonian Music Days was going to feel a bit different. Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Estonia’s independence from Soviet occupation, and one of the effects of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine is that Tallinn…

    Read more
  • Announcements

    Fermata Eesti

    by 5:4 April 17, 2022 • 05:00
    April 17, 2022 • 05:00

    This morning i’m setting off for Tallinn, to explore the eclectic shenanigans at this year’s Estonian Music Days. Words to follow once i’m back later next week.

    Read more
  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Helena Tulve – Lament (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 16, 2022 • 05:00
    April 16, 2022 • 05:00

    Curating this year’s Lent Series, focusing on death, grief and loss, has been something of a difficult experience. As i mentioned at the start of the series, this theme has felt unavoidable and inevitable at the moment, but at the same time works such as the ones i’ve featured, that…

    Read more
  • Lent SeriesPremières

    James MacMillan – The Keening (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 13, 2022 • 05:00
    April 13, 2022 • 05:00

    The penultimate work in this year’s Lent Series is one that ended up having to wait over a quarter of a century from the date of composition to receive its first performance. James MacMillan completed his orchestral piece The Keening in 1987, while studying for his PhD at Durham University.…

    Read more
  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Arash Yazdani – Nakba (World Première)

    by 5:4 April 9, 2022 • 16:36
    April 9, 2022 • 16:36

    The Arabic word ‘nakba’ (النكبة), which translates as “disaster” or “cataclysm”, is used to refer to the suffering, displacement and destruction wrought on the Palestinians from 1948 (with the wartime exodus) to the present day. It’s a term that has been in use right from the outset of the Israeli-Palestinian…

    Read more
  • Lent Series

    Chaya Czernowin – Black Flowers

    by 5:4 April 5, 2022 • 05:00
    April 5, 2022 • 05:00

    i’m turning to music that’s more abstract, though no less powerfully evocative, for the next work in this year’s Lent Series. The title of Chaya Czernowin‘s short 2018 guitar piece Black Flowers comes from a text by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard: In the depths of matter there grows an obscure…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Borealis 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 April 2, 2022 • 12:27
    April 2, 2022 • 12:27

    i wrote in Part 1 about the warm, inviting and relaxing atmosphere that pervaded each of the concerts at Borealis 2022. Establishing this kind of environment for audiences is vital, for two important reasons. First, because any festival that claims itself to be, as Borealis explicitly does, “for experimental music”…

    Read more
  • Mixtapes

    Mixtape #64 : War

    by 5:4 April 1, 2022 • 10:21
    April 1, 2022 • 10:21

    For the spring 5:4 mixtape the theme has felt tragically unavoidable. i’ve opted to approach the subject of war partly in a generalised way, but it would have been disingenuous not to reflect the specifics of what Ukraine is currently being subjected to by Russia. The mix therefore opens with…

    Read more
  • FestivalsPremières

    Borealis 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 March 31, 2022 • 14:48
    March 31, 2022 • 14:48

    Even at the first concert of the first day of Borealis 2022, i was realising how much the festival felt different from the norm. i go to a lot of festivals (notwithstanding the upheavals of the last two years), and for the most part, aside from cultural distinctions, they’re all…

    Read more
  • Lent Series

    Žibuoklė Martinaitytė – Solastalgia

    by 5:4 March 30, 2022 • 14:59
    March 30, 2022 • 14:59

    The word ‘solastalgia’ was invented in 2003 by philosopher Glenn Albrecht as a concept to describe the lived experience of negative environmental change. This indicates a variety of contexts – both actual and potential – in which one directly experiences grief and pain from the perception that one’s sense of…

    Read more
  • Lent SeriesPremières

    John Woolrich – Swan Song (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 26, 2022 • 11:34
    March 26, 2022 • 11:34

    The next work i’m featuring in this year’s Lent Series is one that, in the six years since i first heard it, has completely changed my opinion about it. At the world première of John Woolrich’s Swan Song, i felt that “the fragmented delivery of transient moments of something cantabile…

    Read more
  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Naomi Pinnock – We are (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 22, 2022 • 14:03
    March 22, 2022 • 14:03

    The next piece i’m featuring in this year’s Lent Series, focusing on grief and loss, is probably the shortest i’ve ever explored on 5:4. Naomi Pinnock’s We are consists of a mere 12 bars of music, lasting around 60 seconds. The piece was part of BBC Radio 3’s ‘Postcards from…

    Read more
  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Elis Hallik – Some Paths Will Always Lead Through the Shadows (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 18, 2022 • 05:00
    March 18, 2022 • 05:00

    The next piece in my Lent Series is concerned with not just the possibility but the occasional necessity of having to progress through darkness. Some Paths Will Always Lead Through the Shadows was composed by Elis Hallik in 2021, and takes as inspiration words by poet Doris Kareva: Bitter and…

    Read more
  • Announcements

    Fermata Borealis

    by 5:4 March 16, 2022 • 05:00
    March 16, 2022 • 05:00

    i’m setting off this morning for Bergen, to attend Norway’s most discombobulating new music festival Borealis. Words to follow once i get back next week – and once i’ve begun to figure out what on earth i experienced.

    Read more
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5:4
  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Complete list of ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
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    • Submission Contact Form