Today’s my 20th wedding anniversary, so i’m going to be away for the rest of the week enjoying a completely music-free time with my best Beloved. i’ll be catching up on all the Proms premières as soon as i’m back.
Announcements
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In February last year, Monty Adkins and i organised Ambient@40, the first academic conference devoted to ambient music, which took place over two days at Huddersfield University. The conference was designed to explore the history and legacy of the genre forty years after the release of Brian Eno’s pivotal album …
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i’m setting off this morning for the Faroe Islands, where i’ll be spending the next six days exploring some of Summartónar, their annual music festival. While i’m away, the first of this year’s series of ‘pre-première questions’ articles with composers featured at the Proms (which begins on Friday) will appear. …
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i’m setting off for Estonia this morning, to attend this year’s Estonian Music Days, which this year is not only celebrating its 40th anniversary but also hosting the ISCM World Music Days, so it’ll no doubt be an especially interesting occasion. Words to follow in due course.
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The programme for this year’s Proms season has been unveiled today. Looking at it from a contemporary music perspective, last year’s season has been revealed (as expected) to have been a one-off of surprising generosity. In 2018 we ended up with no fewer than 39 premières, whereas the usual figure …
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A quick announcement to say that this weekend i’ll be at the Sound-Image Colloquium, taking place at the University of Greenwich. An event exploring audiovisual practices and the relationships that exist between sound and image, on Sunday morning – at 11am, presumably following a minute’s silence – i’ll be presenting …
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18 months ago, i was standing in a forest. It was located on the Lohusalu peninsula, near the village of Laulasmaa on the north-west Estonian coast. This is the site of Aliina, Arvo Pärt’s country retreat, as well as the enormous archive of his scores, sketches and a myriad other …
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As of yesterday, autumn is officially here, so it’s time to take stock of some of the more interesting concerts looming on the horizon. Most imminently, Japan’s most dazzling audiovisual electronic pioneer Ryoji Ikeda is making a rare visit to the UK. His Barbican concert on Sunday night (which i’ll …
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Tomorrow morning, my best beloved and i are heading off on holiday for a week, so normal service will resume once i’m back. One or two articles might just appear while i’m gone, and in the meantime, if you haven’t already, be sure to express your opinion about each of …
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A couple of performances of my work are coming up soon. Most imminently is the #EarBox series of art and music performances organised by the University of Kent. Their next event features my 2012 ambient work Night Liminal in conjunction with a new exhibition titled Extending the Frame. It’s taking …
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In a few days’ time, my most recent cycle of electronic music will be released by the adventurous Portuguese label, Crónica. The title of the cycle is the Japanese word 間 (ma), which is difficult easily to translate into English. The concept it embodies is a spatial one, specifically the gap between …
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A quick, last-minute heads-up about Huddersfield University’s annual blow-out celebrating all things electronic, Electric Spring, which starts this evening and runs until Sunday. This year’s programme is typically diverse: Philip Thomas and Colin Frank will be performing works for piano, percussion and electronics, Freida Abtan will present a 21-minute audiovisual work …
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i’m taking a short breather from this week’s concerts and reviews from the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival to announce the launch of 5:4 on Patreon. It was in January 2008, almost ten years ago, that I started this blog, devoted to the most interesting, innovative and impressive contemporary and avant-garde music of our time. It all began …
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Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, an album that established a manifesto, an aesthetic, an ideology and an archetype for ambient music. This is something i’m intending to celebrate and explore on 5:4 throughout 2018, but beyond this, i’m delighted …
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Some Wandelweiser news. First, the label has set up a couple of juicy pre-order deals for their next round of releases, featuring works by Cyril Bondi, Hermann Meier, Eva-Maria Houben and Michael Winter: three CDs for €30, or all six for €50 (that’s £26 and £44 in real money). The deals are …
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Having packed up for their summer break, ensembles and festivals are starting to get going again in the weeks and months ahead. Most immediately, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is poised to pop the corks in celebration of their 30th birthday. There’s a couple of events happening in London: on 2 …
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i forgot to say: i’m now on holiday for a little while, so normal service will resume next week. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, make sure you have your say about each and every one of the previous Proms premières on the Polls page. Toodle pip.
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Here it is at last, announced in the last few minutes is the complete programme for this year’s 40 edition of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, which begins in a little under four months’ time, running from Friday 17–Sunday 26 November. In addition to the highlights i’ve previously mentioned, there’s …
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i’ve just returned from a few days in Poland, and before i get started on catch-up reviews of Cheltenham and the Proms, at a press conference in Warsaw a couple of days ago a slew of new announcements were made about this year’s 40th edition of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music …
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The 2017 Proms season is fast approaching, and in anticipation of this i’ve contributed an essay to the July edition of online journal Sounds Like Now. The essay focuses specifically on the way contemporary music has been and continues to be represented at the Proms, exploring a number of themes with …