audiovisual

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 …

At the more serious end of the expressive spectrum, there was a lot to take in during my long weekend at this year’s HCMF. It was disappointing to witness, in Ann Cleare‘s TERRARIUM, yet another example of that which has become so prevalent at HCMF in recent years, a multimedia …

Despite the fact that in recent years my general feeling about the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is that it’s become over-familiar and rather predictable – perhaps in need of a fresh start / reboot – my experience during the opening weekend of this year’s HCMF was genuinely unexpected: music that …

In between the concerts and events at this year’s AFEKT festival, while i was in Tartu i was able to experience the latest venture from Japanese multimedia artist Ryoji Ikeda. Taking place in the spectacular Estonian National Museum, it comprised a solo exhibition and the world première of a collaboration …

The COMMUTE festival, based at the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre, takes its name from its three primary spheres of interest: COMposition, MUsic, TEchnology. i’ve mentioned previously the mixture of success and failure with regard to audiovisual works at this year’s COMMUTE, and this polarity reared its head on …

Back in the heady days when I was a composition undergrad, full of that unique youthful blend of enthusiasm and arrogance, I loved student concerts. Hardly surprising really, as they were my concerts, occasions when me and my friends would present the latest fruits of our wayward whims. Nothing changed …

Ambient modes of expression, and listening, were brought to bear on two large-scale works during my long weekend at HCMF, both by Lithuanian composers. The less successful of the two was Hadal Zone by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, which sought to be an hour-long sonic descent into the most abyssal oceanic depths. …

The key word, i think, is “feast”. There was something gloriously gluttonous about the quantity of music performed at BEAST FEaST 2022, though considering the festival was celebrating both the 40th anniversary of the founding of Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre and the recent 70th birthday of its founder Jonty Harrison, …

In addition to conventional acoustic and electronic music, there was the opportunity to explore a variety of audiovisual work during my time in Tallinn. This was primarily due to COMMUTE, a fringe festival run by the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, with late evening concerts each day, after the …

Norway’s annual Borealis festival is more than just a conventional sequence of concerts primarily concerned with the way music sounds. Its aim is evidently toward a more holistic experience, one in which words and visuals are just as important – often, more so – than what we’re hearing. As such, …

A few months back i wrote about about the appearance of various releases by The Hafler Trio on Bandcamp, which quite apart from being highly unexpected (hitherto Andrew M. McKenzie had seemed opposed to his output being released in a digital format) is a very good thing indeed, since most …