i started smiling even before i started listening. There’s playful and there’s joyful – and then there’s actual play and joy. To spend time with Alex Paxton‘s music is to enter a soundworld that’s all about the latter. It’s a world where the idea of being embarrassed, reserved, sensible or …

Alongside chamber and electroacoustic music, the 2025 World New Music Days included a diverse range of ensemble and orchestral works.

The 2025 World New Music Days included a healthy amount of electronic and electroacoustic music. Interestingly, most of the best of them were individual submissions, not part of any country’s official selection. i’m not entirely sure what that signifies, but it’s worth noting. All of these works were performed in …

Self-knowledge is an ongoing, never-ending thing, isn’t it? The other evening i was streaming a performance of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie on the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall, and became increasingly aware of the extent to which this particular piece not only shaped me as a musician, but also revealed aspects of …

It’s always good to hear new music from Birmingham composer James Dooley, aka Formuls. He’s recently put out two releases that are essentially siblings. It’s been a while (too long) since i last wrote about Dooley’s work, but on that occasion i was exploring music that sat in various levels …

The World New Music Days features a wide variety of instrumental combinations, but the majority of music featured at this year’s festival were chamber works. Some of these fell within a trio of “extraordinário” concerts, each focused on a solo instrument, clarinet, cello and saxophone.

My first impression of Toivo Tulev, established nearly a decade ago during my first few sojourns to Estonia, was of a composer whose language was one of polarised extremes. The more i’ve got to know his music over the years, the more that first impression has been confirmed: Tulev’s is …

Contemporary music festivals often feel the need to impose a theme on the proceedings, but in the case of this year’s World New Music Days, hosted in Portugal, it was less a theme than a rallying cry. “Thirst for Change” was the phrase hanging over the festival, though as with …

Hot on the heels of the recent Estonian Music Days, there have been several interesting new releases of Estonian music. Among them is a new recording of Violin Concerto No. 2 “Angel’s Share” by one of the country’s most accessible composers, Erkki-Sven Tüür, featuring soloist Hans Christian Aavik with the …

This afternoon i’m packing my bags for Portugal, where i’ll be throwing myself into the non-stop sonic overload that is the World New Music Days, flitting between Lisbon and Porto. This is one of contemporary music’s most engrossing and exhausting festivals, so all being well i’ll make it through all …

Even though i knew this day was coming, and potentially coming soon, i’m still deeply sad at the news that Per Nørgård has died today. What makes me even sadder, instinctively, is that i feel i don’t know his work better, that there’s so much of his output i’ve not …

Last Saturday i found myself in the salubrious confines of Just Dropped In, a small record shop in central Coventry, for a live performance by US experimental duo LEYA, comprising harpist Marilu Donovan and violin-vocalist Adam Markiewicz. In hindsight, being something of a shrine to all that’s vintage – with …

Over the last 10 years, as i’ve been immersing myself ever more deeply into Estonian contemporary music, i’ve tentatively reached a point where i feel i can be more or less confident of what certain composers will or won’t do. Yet i mentioned in Part 1 of the lingering sense …

Two concerts of special interest that happen each year during the Estonian Music Days are those focusing on works by student composers. One of these took place in Tartu, at the Heino Eller Music School, being the final concert of the 2025 Young Composer competition. The requirements on this occasion …

Anniversaries were the focus at this year’s Estonian Music Days festival. The festival’s theme, ‘Sada’ (100), celebrated the centenary of the country’s Composers’ Union. There was therefore something of a retrospective flavour to certain aspects of the festival, revisiting significant works in addition to paying tribute to various notable figures …

It’s that time again: this morning i’m setting off for this year’s Estonian Music Days festival, which this year is celebrating 100 years of the country’s Composers’ Union. Back in a couple of weeks, with all the words to follow.

Let’s return to one of the great maxims of not just contemporary but all music: size isn’t important. In the case of Norway’s Only Connect festival, its short, 2½-day duration belied the fact that its content was highly concentrated. As such, one event started to blur into the next, into …

The aim of this year’s 5:4 Lent Series has been twofold: first, to celebrate the work of US composer and sound artist Christopher McFall, and second, in collaboration with McFall, to re-release his work after many, many years of languishing completely unavailable. In the early stages of planning this series, …

One of the more beguiling things to have entered my ears recently is Figure Pieces, a new 22-minute EP from Danish composer Mads Emil Dreyer. Two of Dreyer’s Forsvindere pieces were featured on his album Disappearer, released last year, and Figure Pieces demonstrates the same fascination with the permutational possibilities …

Familiarity can go a long way to diminish the effects of ambiguity. By now, 40 days into this Lent Series, we’re accustomed to the fact that immersing oneself within Christopher McFall‘s work is to enter a dark world of shapes moving in shadows, where sounds hint, suggest and allude, but …