Well done Simon, another great cycle of reviews. Enjoy a well earned rest!
I think the quality of the printed programme has declined in recent years. No text now seems standard and short biographies of performers are no longer available. Is this due to more information being freely available online? Is it general cost cutting? I strongly believe sung text and translation should always be provided. A good Festival then? Not a great one? I still felt like i was leaving a party far too early when i left.
Thanks for the kind words Alan – it was good to see you again! i’m not fussed about the short performer biographies – they’re all so generic and interchangeable that i stopped reading them years ago. But the lack of sung text is a real problem, although HCMF regularly gives separate handouts for some concerts, including the complete (very long) text for Haas’ Hyena on the opening Saturday night. Because of that i expected the same to happen for the Finnissy/Lang concert, so it was a real shame (and frustratingly inconsistent!) that they didn’t. As for how good it was overall, i’ve just written some reflections about that…
Chris L
8 years ago
Simon, the “Hear and Now concert” from the second Saturday night is well worth investigating on iPlayer if you missed it. Touchingly, it was dedicated to Pauline Oliveros mere hours after news of her death broke.
Rest assured both broadcasts were recorded in my absence (I never use iPlayer!) – and I quickly edited down the second one yesterday morning, really looking forward to it.
I was unexpectedly able to attend, after being given a last-minute offer of childcare. Perhaps surprisingly for such a long HCMF gig, there were no real duds IMHO, although I guess the Pursglove/Stronen improvisation might not be to everyone’s taste.
I’m glad Peyee Chen got to perform those two songs by Finnissy – her performance of them in Edinburgh last month was really excellent. It’ll be great to hear them again.
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Well done Simon, another great cycle of reviews. Enjoy a well earned rest!
I think the quality of the printed programme has declined in recent years. No text now seems standard and short biographies of performers are no longer available. Is this due to more information being freely available online? Is it general cost cutting? I strongly believe sung text and translation should always be provided. A good Festival then? Not a great one? I still felt like i was leaving a party far too early when i left.
Thanks for the kind words Alan – it was good to see you again! i’m not fussed about the short performer biographies – they’re all so generic and interchangeable that i stopped reading them years ago. But the lack of sung text is a real problem, although HCMF regularly gives separate handouts for some concerts, including the complete (very long) text for Haas’ Hyena on the opening Saturday night. Because of that i expected the same to happen for the Finnissy/Lang concert, so it was a real shame (and frustratingly inconsistent!) that they didn’t. As for how good it was overall, i’ve just written some reflections about that…
Simon, the “Hear and Now concert” from the second Saturday night is well worth investigating on iPlayer if you missed it. Touchingly, it was dedicated to Pauline Oliveros mere hours after news of her death broke.
Rest assured both broadcasts were recorded in my absence (I never use iPlayer!) – and I quickly edited down the second one yesterday morning, really looking forward to it.
I was unexpectedly able to attend, after being given a last-minute offer of childcare. Perhaps surprisingly for such a long HCMF gig, there were no real duds IMHO, although I guess the Pursglove/Stronen improvisation might not be to everyone’s taste.
I’m glad Peyee Chen got to perform those two songs by Finnissy – her performance of them in Edinburgh last month was really excellent. It’ll be great to hear them again.