• About
    • Other writings
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions explored 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
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form
5:4
Category:

Premières

  • FestivalsPremières

    World New Music Days 2025, Portugal (Part 1)

    by 5:4 June 15, 2025 • 08:15
    June 15, 2025 • 08:15

    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 …

    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2025 (Part 3)

    by 5:4 May 22, 2025 • 09:14
    May 22, 2025 • 09:14

    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 …

    Read more
    2 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2025 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 17, 2025 • 10:01
    May 17, 2025 • 10:01

    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 …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2025 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 May 12, 2025 • 16:17
    May 12, 2025 • 16:17

    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 …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Only Connect 2025

    by 5:4 April 22, 2025 • 14:30
    April 22, 2025 • 14:30

    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 …

    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Musica Nova 2025 (Part 5)

    by 5:4 March 28, 2025 • 12:06
    March 28, 2025 • 12:06

    One of the most fascinating events at this year’s Musica Nova festival was LOKS – four concerts at once. Not so much a performance as a film juxtaposing and compositing four separate performances, it featured music by four composers whose initials form the title: Lauri Supponen, Oene val Geel, Krists …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Musica Nova 2025 (Part 4)

    by 5:4 March 22, 2025 • 09:26
    March 22, 2025 • 09:26

    Some of the most memorable performances at this year’s Musica Nova festival were of vocal works. The concert given by the Vicentino Singers was powerful not simply because of the abilities of the singers, but due to their size. Being a sextet, the level of intimacy they established was considerable; …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Musica Nova 2025 (Part 3)

    by 5:4 March 13, 2025 • 12:32
    March 13, 2025 • 12:32

    Being the risky, aspiringly cutting edge things that they are, contemporary music festivals always tend to be a bit hit and miss. Very little i heard at Musica Nova 2025 fell into the latter category, but there were a few pieces that slipped through the quality net, being memorable for …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Musica Nova 2025 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 March 7, 2025 • 10:21
    March 7, 2025 • 10:21

    Especially prominent at this year’s Musica Nova festival was the lavish organ in Helsinki’s Musiikkitalo concert hall, unveiled at the start of 2024. The largest modern concert hall organ in the world, its construction was partly made possible by one of Finland’s greatest composers, the late Kaija Saariaho, who in …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Musica Nova 2025 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 February 26, 2025 • 10:08
    February 26, 2025 • 10:08

    i’ve commented before on my general disinterest, and usual disregard, for music festival themes. Musica Nova, Helsinki’s biennial new music extravaganza, opted for ‘together’ as its theme this year, and while that word is sufficiently vague as to have almost no meaning, there were numerous times when that word insinuated …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir – Ecognosis (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 23, 2024 • 06:00
    December 23, 2024 • 06:00

    Behind today’s Advent Calendar door is an ambitious work by arguably Iceland’s most exciting and radically forward-looking composer of recent years, Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir. Ecognosis was composed in 2021, a work for bass clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and various transduced tam-tams. It was intended to be premièred at the Dark …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Elis Hallik – The Firehearted (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 19, 2024 • 06:00
    December 19, 2024 • 06:00

    As i’ve often remarked here (usually in connection with yet another Proms commission) i’m not a fan of contemporary works that seek to ‘respond’ to earlier music. It’s a lazy commissioning approach, usually producing dismal musical results, with the only successes emanating from composers who aren’t particularly fussed about how …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Otto Iivari – Static (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 18, 2024 • 06:00
    December 18, 2024 • 06:00

    Today’s Advent Calendar piece, Static by Finnish composer Otto Iivari, is technically an audiovisual work. On the two occasions i experienced it, the electronics were presented in conjunction with a tiny TV on a table, displaying a mixture of static and several clear bands that made for a curious relationship …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Elnaz Seyedi – A Mark of Our Breath (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 17, 2024 • 06:00
    December 17, 2024 • 06:00

    There are times when it can feel like all contemporary music is split down the middle, with half the composers concerned with frantic activity and movement, and the other half obsessed with the opposite, stillness and immobility. That’s an exaggeration, but there’s more than a little truth to it, and …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Sasha Scott – Humans May Not Apply (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 16, 2024 • 06:00
    December 16, 2024 • 06:00

    Behind today’s Advent Calendar door is a quick bit of fun from British composer Sasha Scott. In 2019, Scott won the Senior category in the BBC Young Composer of the Year Competition with a four-minute orchestral-electronic hybrid titled Humans May Not Apply. It’s a work that both pits the acoustic …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    György Kurtág – Circumdederunt… in memoriam Rita Wagner (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 15, 2024 • 06:00
    December 15, 2024 • 06:00

    Today’s Advent Calendar piece is one of the shortest works i’ve ever written about. Circumdederunt… in memoriam Rita Wagner by György Kurtág commemorates the Hungarian pianist who died in 2021. Back in 2019, my esteemed blogospherical colleague David Nice mentioned that, after attending a masterclass with Wagner, he had “probably …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Larry Goves – Borneo Rivers 2 (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 13, 2024 • 06:00
    December 13, 2024 • 06:00

    One of the more memorable pieces to have been featured in the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival’s annual ‘Shorts’ day (comprising a conveyor belt of miniature concerts, all free to the public) in recent years is Borneo Rivers 2 by Larry Goves. In many ways it’s an unassuming piece: just six …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Maria Kõrvits – I Am Calling To You (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 12, 2024 • 06:00
    December 12, 2024 • 06:00

    Nestling behind today’s Advent Calendar door is one of the most remarkable choral works i’ve ever heard, and one that nicely continues the “I am” reflections from yesterday. I Am Calling to You by Maria Kõrvits is a piece for male choir setting a text that, while some attribute to …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Naomi Pinnock – I am, I am (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 11, 2024 • 06:00
    December 11, 2024 • 06:00

    When words emerge in Naomi Pinnock‘s music, that’s precisely what they do: emerge. This is achieved partly by paring down the text to a bare essential minimum (The writings of Jakob Br. uses just two words, for example), but more due to the manner in which the words are articulated. …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Maria Rostovtseva – Calcium Cooke 1959 (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 9, 2024 • 06:00
    December 9, 2024 • 06:00

    i’ve heard many wonderful things during my numerous trips to Estonia during the last decade, but today’s Advent Calendar piece is one of the most memorable of them all. That may seem strange considering it’s done and dusted in under four minutes, but its brevity is one of the prime …

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 32

Subscribe to 5:4

World New Music Days 2025 Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • Rss
  • Mixcloud
Footer Logo

© Simon Cummings

5:4
  • About
    • Other writings
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions explored 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
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form