Perhaps the most compelling example of the kind of disorientation that border states can engender came in the concert given by Polish ensemble Spółdzielnia Muzyczna, appropriately titled ‘The Borders of Identity’. Here, more than anywhere else during AFEKT 2023, was a concert where none of the five works on the …

Borders are places of confusion, uncertainty and, often, danger, and in this context concerts such as the ones previously discussed at AFEKT 2023 – where most works had strong similarities while one or two were markedly different – raised related questions. Is such similarity attractive and important because it suggests …

i’m setting off for Kraków today, to attend the Sacrum Profanum festival. Words about that to follow once i get back from Poland, but while i’m away there’ll be more to come about AFEKT 2023.

Perhaps there’s never been a more appropriate time for a music festival to take as its theme, “Border State”. Borders seem more prominent in world events than ever: we’ve seen them being viciously violated, vigorously reinforced, valiantly defended. Conflicts continue to rage, and the resultant feeling is one of separation …

Elis Hallik is probably the most interesting Estonian composer who, thus far, i haven’t written much about. During my annual trips to the Estonian Music Days in recent years, she has rarely been featured, so until recently, all i knew of her music were two chamber works, To Become A …

This morning i’m travelling to Estonia to experience, for the first time, the Afekt festival. i’ll be back at the start of next month; words in due course.

The other conductor filling in the blanks in a symphony cycle is John Storgårds. With the Oslo Philharmonic, Storgårds has previously recorded four of Per Nørgård‘s eight symphonies (numbers 2, 4, 5 and 6) on a couple of discs released by DaCapo in 2016, which i explored at the time. …

There have been a couple of interesting examples recently of conductors filling in the blanks of their respective symphony cycles. Antoni Wit recorded all but one of Krzysztof Penderecki‘s eight symphonies with the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, issued on a series of five discs by Naxos in the noughties. …

It’s a while since there’s been an album devoted to Tōru Takemitsu‘s orchestral music, so it’s been good to spend time with a new release from the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Christian Karlsen, that explores four of the composer’s works from the ’80s and ’90s. One of them is purely …

The experience of Christina Kubisch‘s electromagnetic walk around Oslo’s library had a counterpart in her new vocal work, Strømsanger (“electrical singers”), premièred by Trondheim Voices. The piece originated in the electromagnetic sounds made by Trondheim’s tram system; these became the basis for transcriptions that Kubisch developed further. Lasting around 40 …

i wish i could remember who once said to me that composing was like a form of time travel. The finished composition has a certain duration, but while working on the piece, the composer can move freely, forwards and backwards through what we might call the “compositional spacetime”, in the …

Two of my favourite elements of the Ultima festival are its sound walks and installations. To explore Trevor Mathison‘s From Signal to Decay Vol. 6 i walked across town to Atelier Nord, one of Oslo’s most chameleonic spaces. On this occasion its usually bright, open interior had been partitioned, with …

Oslo’s annual contemporary music festival Ultima is currently in something of a transition, between outgoing artistic director Thorbjørn Tønder Hansen and incoming Heloisa Amaral, who took the helm in February this year. On the one hand, what i experienced during my three days there was broadly comparable to previous years, …

At the moment, as will be abundantly obvious, 5:4 is experiencing some display issues. This appears to have stemmed from a plugin that earlier today wrought a bit of havoc under the hood, in the process messing up the visual theme i’ve been using. Having been inaccessible for a short …

First thing this morning i’m setting off for Oslo to catch the last few days of this year’s Ultima Festival. Words galore to follow in due course.

Some years ago I was at the Royal Opera House, watching and listening with a growing sense of disbelief and horror as a contemporary opera entirely failed to understand or meaningfully capture the source material upon which it was based. That was Thomas Adès’ wretched The Exterminating Angel, an embarrassingly …

Two years have passed since the Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s previous series of albums, Recurrence, Concurrence, Occurrence, and their latest release, Atmospheriques Vol. I, is the start of a new series. As before, the orchestra is conducted by Daníel Bjarnasson, and the emphasis is again on Icelandic composers, though here they’re …

Reconfiguring the Landscape is the title of a new album of acousmatic works by Natasha Barrett, though in some respects, as presented here, it could just as well be titled Reconfiguring the Room. The five works on the album originate in site-specific projects, all of which sought in some way …

Staunch conservatives don’t merely hold sway over our current government but also, it seems, our concert halls, judging by the latest desolation of premières at this year’s Proms. In the case of the Prelude and Fugue in G major by Rachel Laurin, posthumously premièred in Isabelle Demers’ organ recital, i …

i was deeply saddened to receive a message around an hour ago, with the news that composer Gloria Coates has died. i only began to spend significant time with Gloria’s work last year, when it finally dawned on me just how fascinating and remarkable it is. This led to my …