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Concerts

  • ConcertsPremières

    HCMF 2017: The Otheroom, Ensemble Modern + Arditti Quartet, zeitkratzer perform Kraftwerk

    by 5:4 November 19, 2017 • 18:52
    November 19, 2017 • 18:52

    Yesterday at HCMF was unusual, personally speaking, as for the most part it involved hearing music not for the first time. In the evening at St Paul’s Hall, Ensemble Modern and the Arditti Quartet gave the first UK performances of Carola Bauckholt‘s Laufwerk, Christopher Trapani‘s PolychROME and Brian Ferneyhough‘s 45-minute…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    HCMF 2017: Red Note Ensemble, Metal Machine Music, Aeolian

    by 5:4 November 18, 2017 • 13:39
    November 18, 2017 • 13:39

    Here we go again (deep breath)… The opening concert of the 40th edition of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival immediately gave one pause for thought. What it wasn’t was a conventional wallop, a smack around the ears to wake us up out of our complacency, such as the one given…

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  • Concerts

    Recognition, raw ambition and raw power: Alba New Music 2017

    by 5:4 October 13, 2017 • 12:51
    October 13, 2017 • 12:51

    Last weekend brought the welcome return of Alba New Music, Edinburgh’s nascent new music festival. Having got the ball rolling with a bang last year, the 2017 festival as a whole felt more focused, in part due to deliberately having something of a thematic thread running through it. With an emphasis…

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  • Concerts

    Birmingham Repertory Theatre Studio: Peter Eötvös – The Golden Dragon

    by 5:4 October 4, 2017 • 12:22
    October 4, 2017 • 12:22

    Let’s start at the end. It would be easy to fall into the trap of mistaking Peter Eötvös‘ music theatre piece The Golden Dragon, currently touring the UK in a production by Music Theatre Wales, as a serious, even moving piece. Or, rather, not mistaking it for that (few people, one hopes, are…

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  • Concerts

    Nowy Teatr, Warsaw: Wojtek Blecharz – Body-Opera

    by 5:4 July 29, 2017 • 16:44
    July 29, 2017 • 16:44

    At the 2016 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the world première of Body-Opera by Polish composer Wojtek Blecharz didn’t exactly go to plan. Located at The Hepworth Wakefield – and set up somewhat hurriedly in the aftermath of the awarding of The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture that had recently taken place – an ensuing…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Cheltenham Music Festival 2017: 21st Century String Quartet, The Hallé

    by 5:4 July 19, 2017 • 16:26
    July 19, 2017 • 16:26

    Here’s a suggestion: if a composer can’t summarise their programme note in fewer than a couple of hundred words, that’s a problem. Is that terribly controversial? Judging by what we were given at the Cheltenham Music Festival last Saturday, it is. This is not a local problem, though, it’s something…

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  • ConcertsFestivals

    Cheltenham Music Festival 2017: Tenebrae

    by 5:4 July 13, 2017 • 15:40
    July 13, 2017 • 15:40

    What is it with British contemporary choral music? i found myself asking that question constantly during the fourteen minutes of Footsteps, the work that opened last night’s Cheltenham Music Festival concert in Tewkesbury Abbey, given by the vocal ensemble Tenebrae. It perhaps goes without saying that one makes a double…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Cheltenham Music Festival 2017: Love Songs

    by 5:4 July 10, 2017 • 12:36
    July 10, 2017 • 12:36

    Last night saw the second concert of this year’s Cheltenham Music Festival to be almost completely devoted to contemporary music. i described the previous one, with E STuudio Youth Choir, as being “a mixed bag of confections”, and the same applies to this event, a piano recital titled ‘Love Songs’…

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  • ConcertsFestivals

    Cheltenham Music Festival 2017: E STuudio Youth Choir

    by 5:4 July 8, 2017 • 15:54
    July 8, 2017 • 15:54

    In the wake of my experiences at this year’s Estonian Music Days, extended in my recent weekend of articles focusing on the country’s choral music, yesterday’s late evening concert at St Matthew’s Church in Cheltenham was a real treat. It featured a choir new to me, the E STuudio Youth Choir,…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Louth Contemporary Music Society: Silenzio Festival, Dundalk

    by 5:4 June 30, 2017 • 12:50
    June 30, 2017 • 12:50

    In terms of outlook (non-partisan), commitment (total to the point of absurdity) and above all its track record during the last eleven (essentially unsung) years, Louth Contemporary Music Society unquestionably deserves to sit alongside the very best contemporary musical festivals. Its most recent, Silenzio, which took place last weekend in…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2017 (Part 3)

    by 5:4 May 15, 2017 • 12:51
    May 15, 2017 • 12:51

    i mentioned in Part 1 that much of the music at this year’s Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik was either for or revolved around the string quartet. But there was also a collection of works (including three i unfortunately missed due to not being able to stay for the final concert)…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2017 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 14, 2017 • 12:05
    May 14, 2017 • 12:05

    In the late evening of the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik‘s opening day, inside the town’s small but elegantly decorated Johanniskirche, the JACK Quartet gave the world premières of a pair of works of an entirely different disposition from that of Ferneyhough and Birtwistle, heard earlier that afternoon. Italian-Swiss composer Oscar Bianchi‘s Pathos…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2017 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 May 13, 2017 • 17:57
    May 13, 2017 • 17:57

    i’ve recently got back from the annual Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (Witten Days for New Chamber Music), Germany’s annual three-day blow out celebrating the newest iterations of the idiom. It was my first experience of the festival, and i have to say my initial impressions were overwhelmingly positive. The…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    St Peter’s Church, Drogheda: James Dillon – The Louth Work: Orphic Fragments (World Première)

    by 5:4 May 3, 2017 • 12:16
    May 3, 2017 • 12:16

    It shames me to admit that, until February this year, i’d never heard of Louth Contemporary Music Society. On the one hand, it’s ridiculous that i hadn’t: for the last seven-or-so years they’ve been putting on fascinating concerts featuring music by, among many others, Terry Riley, György Kurtág, John Zorn, David Lang,…

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  • ConcertsPremières

    Royal Opera House, London: Thomas Adès – The Exterminating Angel (UK Première)

    by 5:4 April 25, 2017 • 20:26
    April 25, 2017 • 20:26

    Among the plethora of quasi-quotations that litter (and that is the right word) Thomas Adès‘ operatic ‘take’ on Luis Buñuel’s cinematic masterwork El ángel exterminador, there was one quotation missing that, had it appeared at the very start, would have made at least the first two acts make total sense:…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2017 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 April 12, 2017 • 12:52
    April 12, 2017 • 12:52

    In the previous part, i remarked on Estonian music’s apparent distance from compositional developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And while i also remarked that i don’t believe it’s happening in a vacuum, it is demonstrably removed from many of the attitudes that one tends to take for granted…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2017 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 April 11, 2017 • 22:42
    April 11, 2017 • 22:42

    i’ve recently got back from a few days in Tallinn, attending Eesti Muusika Päevad, the Estonian Music Days, the country’s annual celebration of contemporary music. Coming away from my first encounter with the EMD last year, and reflecting on the experience after, left me with mixed feelings. Estonian contemporary music…

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  • ConcertsFestivals

    Electric Spring 2017

    by 5:4 February 27, 2017 • 15:35
    February 27, 2017 • 15:35

    i was fortunate to catch four-fifths of last week’s Electric Spring festival, Huddersfield University’s annual exploration and celebration of things electronically musical. As usual, attention was focused on a daily evening concert, featuring a substantial programme preceded by one or more relatively brief opening acts. The festival’s emphasis on electronic music…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Mark Knoop + Juliet Fraser

    by 5:4 November 28, 2016 • 14:49
    November 28, 2016 • 14:49

    My final concert at HCMF 2016 was in St Paul’s Hall in the company of pianist Mark Knoop and soprano Juliet Fraser, who presented the UK premières of two song cycles, Michael Finnissy‘s Andersen-Leiderkreis and Bernhard Lang‘s The Cold Trip, part 2. Despite the fact that some of the Finnissy…

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Richard Uttley, Quatuor Diotima

    by 5:4 November 27, 2016 • 00:02
    November 27, 2016 • 00:02

    Having packed out Phipps Hall at HCMF last year, pianist Richard Uttley‘s Saturday morning recital found him in the considerably more fitting space of St Paul’s Hall. Taking place on a stunningly cold day—local temperatures hovering around -1°C—the audience was healthy in size but not in general well-being, peppering the concert with…

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