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Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2024 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 30, 2024 • 09:19
    November 30, 2024 • 09:19

    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 …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2024 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 28, 2024 • 12:50
    November 28, 2024 • 12:50

    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 …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2023 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 30, 2023 • 13:44
    November 30, 2023 • 13:44

    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. …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2023 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 28, 2023 • 11:12
    November 28, 2023 • 11:12

    Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Music. There were times during my long weekend at this year’s HCMF when i had to keep reminding myself of this word. Performance art, and works incorporating dramatic and theatrical elements, are not just a staple of new music festivals, they’ve become in many cases tentpole …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 December 1, 2022 • 15:24
    December 1, 2022 • 15:24

    This year’s composer in residence at HCMF, Lisa Streich, was represented by an appropriately large number of performances, allowing for a pretty deep dive into her musical thinking. If i say that a lot of what i heard of Streich’s music was more intriguing than immediately enjoyable, i need to …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 30, 2022 • 14:27
    November 30, 2022 • 14:27

    People doing interesting things to objects doesn’t necessarily create interesting music. Can we agree on that? i don’t think that’s a particularly outrageous thing to say, though there were a number of times during my six days at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival when i found myself wondering otherwise. …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2021 (Part 4)

    by 5:4 November 30, 2021 • 11:18
    November 30, 2021 • 11:18

    There’s not a lot left to say about HCMF 2021. In previous instalments i mentioned how continuity, often in tandem with lyricism, played a major role in the music that made the deepest and most long-lasting impression. But from a listening perspective, every piece in every concert at this year’s …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2021 (Part 3)

    by 5:4 November 29, 2021 • 15:46
    November 29, 2021 • 15:46

    One of my recurring trains of thought during HCMF 2021 was concerned with the notion of continuity. This was, very simply, due to the fact that all of the best things i heard at the festival had an incredibly clear, logical sense running through them that, regardless of their inner …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2021 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 28, 2021 • 13:13
    November 28, 2021 • 13:13

    HCMF always has its fair share of unconventional, genre-defying performances, and this year was no exception. Among the more unusual was Eupepsia/Dyspepsia devised by Austrian composer Eva Reiter. Taking the form of a concert-cum-lecture (or possibly lecture-cum-concert), the focus of the work was on the socio-cultural effects wrought on Bolivia …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2021 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 26, 2021 • 16:55
    November 26, 2021 • 16:55

    Though this year it only lasted five days instead of ten, i came away from the 2021 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival with the distinct impression that, somehow, the usual quantity of music had been compressed into a reduced time frame. That’s not, mercifully, because of any attempt to shoehorn many …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2019 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 November 28, 2019 • 15:53
    November 28, 2019 • 15:53

    It’s many, many years since i spent meaningful time in the company of music by Can, so i went to founder member Irmin Schmidt‘s HCMF piano recital last Thursday with precisely no expectations. What transpired was one of the most mesmerising, understated performances that i’ve ever witnessed in St Paul’s …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2019 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 November 27, 2019 • 15:58
    November 27, 2019 • 15:58

    Last week i was able to catch a couple of days of the shenanigans going on at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. It was strange not to be doing my usual thing of setting up camp for the whole shebang, but quite apart from it being better than nothing, …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: Arditti Quartet + Jake Arditti

    by 5:4 November 26, 2018 • 13:13
    November 26, 2018 • 13:13

    My 2018 HCMF experience came to an end yesterday in what is now the traditional way, at 1pm in St Paul’s Hall in the company of the Arditti Quartet. Four years ago, they tackled the first seven quartets by James Dillon; on this occasion their concert included the next two …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: Sciarrino: Carnaval, hcmf// mixtape

    by 5:4 November 25, 2018 • 23:11
    November 25, 2018 • 23:11

    The last couple of years have been good for one of the UK’s most impressive new music groups, Explore Ensemble. Two years ago, i first heard them at HCMF on ‘Shorts’ day, giving a gripping account of Gérard Grisey‘s Talea, and they returned to the festival last year to give a …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: Divertimento Ensemble, Stockhausen: Oktophonie

    by 5:4 November 24, 2018 • 12:19
    November 24, 2018 • 12:19

    When writing about United Instruments of Lucilin’s concert last Tuesday i noted how the only thing the four works they played had in common was their complete dissimilarity to each other. Yesterday evening, in St Paul’s Hall, we experienced the opposite: four pieces of Italian music performed by Divertimento Ensemble …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: A History of the Voice, Christian Marclay + Okkyung Lee, Quatuor Bozzini

    by 5:4 November 23, 2018 • 13:30
    November 23, 2018 • 13:30

    If there’s one thing guaranteed to generate a load of pre-festival buzz, it’s a major new work by Jennifer Walshe. In recent years, while i’ve admired the invention and audacity of Walshe’s large-scale compositions – 2014’s The Total Mountain and EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT, performed at HCMF two years ago – …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: HISS@10, Kudzu, Fast Gold Butterflies

    by 5:4 November 22, 2018 • 14:46
    November 22, 2018 • 14:46

    Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Of those four words, i’d hazard to suggest that the most important is the third one, music. What exactly constitutes ‘music’ is a good question, and one of HCMF’s strengths is the way it’s prepared to challenge and probe what that word connotes and how it …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: United Instruments of Lucilin, Harriet

    by 5:4 November 21, 2018 • 12:48
    November 21, 2018 • 12:48

    Considering the lengths to which curators and ensembles often go to create deep and meaningful connections between the works featured in a concert, yesterday’s performance by Luxembourg ensemble United Instruments of Lucilin was a refreshing break from the norm. The only thing the four pieces had in common was their …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: Ensemble Musikfabrik, Christian Marclay: Investigations

    by 5:4 November 19, 2018 • 00:27
    November 19, 2018 • 00:27

    It’s not unusual, considering HCMF’s openness to stepping outside the bounds of convention, for a new work at the festival to have to overcome how extraordinary it is. That was certainly the case in Huddersfield Town Hall yesterday afternoon, where Christian Marclay‘s Investigations received its world première. It wasn’t just …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2018: Duo Gelland, Ensemble Mosaik

    by 5:4 November 18, 2018 • 15:04
    November 18, 2018 • 15:04

    Yesterday’s late evening concert at HCMF, given by Ensemble Mosaik in Bates Mill, presented the first UK performance of Enno Poppe‘s Rundfunk. There are ways in which the piece is remarkable, and ways in which it isn’t. What certainly is remarkable – and the more i’ve thought about this the …

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5:4
  • About
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    • Compositions explored on 5:4
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    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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  • Contact
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