Chiyoko Szlavnics

As today is International Women’s Day, for my March mixtape i’ve allowed myself to indulge in a celebration of fabulous music by women composers and musicians. Compared to most of my mixtapes, this was one of the more difficult to create, for two reasons. First, because the shortlist of music…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! As of today, 5:4 is ten years old, so first of all i want to say an enormous thank you to all of you who have read, commented, enjoyed, shared and supported this blog over the last decade, especially to my merry band of patrons. As this…

* Please note this list has how been superseded by the one on the Best Albums of the Years page * So here they are, the best of the best of 2017. Your CD racks and audio libraries would be so much better off with these incredible gems nestling among…

Among the most interesting releases to have come out in the opening months of this year are the first five discs in Another Timbre‘s Canadian Composers Series. It’s an ambitious project that seeks to provide an overview of, if not the entirety of contemporary Canadian compositional thought (which is hugely diverse), then…

What with the increase in listeners turning away from physical releases in favour of digital downloads, and in light of yet another (admittedly somewhat spurious) article this week offhandedly proclaiming the imminent death of the album, the efforts of German label NEOS to put out large, lavish box sets are both absurd…

A feature of many of this year’s HCMF concerts has been a blurring of the distinction between pitch and noise, but the midday recital given by Swiss saxophone group Konus Quartett tilted the focus firmly back on pitch. Both works, Jürg Frey‘s Mémoire, horizon and Chiyoko Szlavnics‘ During a Lifetime…

For the new 5:4 mixtape i’ve rather whimsically adopted my favourite colour—purple—as the theme. That colour invites a host of hues and shades, so the mix includes track titles alluding to the entirety of that part of the spectrum, including heliotrope, lavender, fuchsia, pink, plum, magenta, indigo, amethyst, violet and…

A very HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all! i want to say a big thank you to everyone who’s followed 5:4 in the last year, and especially to those of you who’ve posted comments and tweets in response. There are lots of exciting things planned for 2014, so watch this space. In…

* Please note this list has how been superseded by the one on the Best Albums of the Years page * Continuing my round-up of the best music of the year, here’s the first part of the most outstanding albums of 2013; part two will be coming tomorrow.

Due to various compositional projects, i’ve not been able to give 5:4 much focus in the last few weeks, but now that i have some breathing space, it’s time to catch up on the more interesting recent premières and new releases. As well as being interesting, one of the most…