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Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Mark Knoop + Juliet Fraser

    by 5:4 November 28, 2016 • 14:49
    November 28, 2016 • 14:49

    My final concert at HCMF 2016 was in St Paul’s Hall in the company of pianist Mark Knoop and soprano Juliet Fraser, who presented the UK premières of two song cycles, Michael Finnissy‘s Andersen-Leiderkreis and Bernhard Lang‘s The Cold Trip, part 2. Despite the fact that some of the Finnissy …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Richard Uttley, Quatuor Diotima

    by 5:4 November 27, 2016 • 00:02
    November 27, 2016 • 00:02

    Having packed out Phipps Hall at HCMF last year, pianist Richard Uttley‘s Saturday morning recital found him in the considerably more fitting space of St Paul’s Hall. Taking place on a stunningly cold day—local temperatures hovering around -1°C—the audience was healthy in size but not in general well-being, peppering the concert with …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Seth Parker Woods, Ensemble Resonanz + Elliott Sharp + Gareth Davis

    by 5:4 November 26, 2016 • 01:55
    November 26, 2016 • 01:55

    Friday at HCMF began with a recital by rising star cellist Seth Parker Woods. I’ve had the opportunity to see Woods play once before (at HCMF 2014) and the experience was a highly impressive one, so I was very much looking forward to seeing him in action again. He did not …

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  • ConcertsFestivals

    HCMF 2016: Marianne Schuppe

    by 5:4 November 25, 2016 • 00:01
    November 25, 2016 • 00:01

    Twenty-four hours after Aaron Cassidy’s attempt at recreating the Battle of Jericho, St Paul’s Hall was today filled with its polar opposite: Marianne Schuppe performing her 40-minute cycle slow songs. Her approach in each of the eleven songs is to focus almost entirely on a simple, idiosyncratic melodic line, the vehicle for …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: ELISION

    by 5:4 November 23, 2016 • 14:52
    November 23, 2016 • 14:52

    Yesterday at HCMF was really only about one event: the concert given by Australia’s ELISION ensemble, who are this year celebrating their 30th anniversary. ELISION’s relationship with the festival is long-established—their first appearance coincided with my own first ever visit to the festival, almost exactly twenty years ago, to hear them give …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Shorts

    by 5:4 November 22, 2016 • 12:15
    November 22, 2016 • 12:15

    Monday at HCMF is each year given over to a day of free concerts, invariably coming up with a huge variety of musical experiences that makes for an exhausting but (at its best) exhilarating experience. One obviously has to pan for sonic gold on days like this but, as always, …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Trombone Unit Hannover, Klangforum Wien

    by 5:4 November 21, 2016 • 02:08
    November 21, 2016 • 02:08

    The palpable buzz surrounding events at this year’s HCMF featuring music by composer-in-residence Georg Friedrich Haas (of an order considerably greater than that of the previous few years) continued before and during yesterday’s morning concert given by Trombone Unit Hannover. This was no doubt due to the UK performance of …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Walking with Partch, Klangforum Wien + Arditti Quartet

    by 5:4 November 20, 2016 • 16:06
    November 20, 2016 • 16:06

    From queries to plings: following an opening night that raised more questions (and objections) than its respective composers perhaps intended, Saturday night at HCMF moved emphatically in the direction of the epic. Not simply in terms of duration, although that was certainly a factor: Claudia Molitor‘s 60-minute Walking with Partch, the …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2016: Arditti Quartet + Jennifer Walshe, Ensemble Musikfabrik + Peter Brötzmann

    by 5:4 November 19, 2016 • 21:37
    November 19, 2016 • 21:37

    Music festivals understandably like to start with a bang; the 2016 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival began with a WTF. And not just one but two of them, courtesy of Jennifer Walshe with the Arditti Quartet and Ensemble Musikfabrik with Peter Brötzmann. Their respective ‘WTF-ness’ was partly superficial, partly the stark …

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  • FestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2015 revisited: Naomi Pinnock – Lines and Spaces (World Première)

    by 5:4 November 14, 2016 • 15:35
    November 14, 2016 • 15:35

    There are just four days to go until the start of this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and UK audiences get the chance–denied them at most other festivals on these shores—to experience some of today’s most experimental, radical and open-minded music-making. All being well i’ll be there for the duration …

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  • AnnouncementsFestivals

    HCMF 2016: looking forward some more

    by 5:4 August 3, 2016 • 16:47
    August 3, 2016 • 16:47

    Further information has been made available today about this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, following the announcement in May that Georg Friedrich Haas will be the featured Composer in Residence. Predictably, there’s a great deal to get excited about. The music of Harry Partch will be making an appearance courtesy of Ensemble Musikfabrik, …

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  • Premières

    Jürg Frey – Accurate Placement (World Première)

    by 5:4 June 27, 2016 • 22:10
    June 27, 2016 • 22:10

    A piece that’s been quietly beguiling me of late is Accurate Placement, by the Swiss composer Jürg Frey. A 16-minute work for solo double bass, it received its first performance last November, at one of the few HCMF concerts i didn’t get to. As my articles from that time will have made …

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  • AnnouncementsFestivals

    HCMF 2016: looking forward – Georg Friedrich Haas

    by 5:4 May 4, 2016 • 11:02
    May 4, 2016 • 11:02

    It’s been announced this morning that the Composer in Residence at this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival will be Georg Friedrich Haas. His work has been an occasional feature at HCMF in the past, nowhere more spectacularly than in the 2013 UK première of in vain, a piece concerning itself with endless …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2015: Eastern Waves, Arditti Quartet

    by 5:4 November 30, 2015 • 16:22
    November 30, 2015 • 16:22

    Saturday afternoon at HCMF brought ‘Eastern Waves’, a double-bill of experimental electronics courtesy of Tomek Mirt and Maja S K Ratkje, each re-working compositions from each other’s country. Mirt took Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim’s Solitaire as his basis, creating—via extensive knob-twiddling on a complex vertical stack of devices festooned with …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2015: Ensemble Grizzana, Philip Thomas

    by 5:4 November 28, 2015 • 20:42
    November 28, 2015 • 20:42

    Two concerts yesterday, on what had punningly come to be known as “Frey-day”, afforded the opportunity to spend considerably more time with the music of Jürg Frey. i’ve been wrangling with how the word ‘ascetic’ sits with respect to Frey’s music. It’s not, i believe, music wearing a hairshirt, but …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2015: Erik Drescher, Jonty Harrison, Biliana Voutchkova

    by 5:4 November 26, 2015 • 14:19
    November 26, 2015 • 14:19

    In a refreshing break from the large number of groups and ensembles that have dominated HCMF so far, yesterday was given over to three individuals. The first was Berlin-based flautist Erik Drescher, in a recital of works, all receiving their UK premières, specifically composed for the glissando flute (fitted with a …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2015: Konus Quartett, Daniel Buess & Aleksander Gabryś, Ensemble CEPROMUSIC, Jakob Ullmann

    by 5:4 November 25, 2015 • 15:15
    November 25, 2015 • 15:15

    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 …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2015: Shorts

    by 5:4 November 24, 2015 • 11:05
    November 24, 2015 • 11:05

    Being a Cotswolds lad, born and raised, i’d have to liken HCMF’s ‘Shorts’ day of free miniature concerts yesterday to a long walk over the hills, with spectacular vistas yet passing through numerous fields randomly distributed with large cowpats. In each field, you pick a direction and stick to it, …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2015: Quatuor Bozzini, Ensemble Phoenix Basel

    by 5:4 November 23, 2015 • 00:41
    November 23, 2015 • 00:41

    Today’s afternoon concerts occupied opposite ends of a number of musical continua, the most obvious being dynamic. At the quiet end, in St Paul’s Hall, were the Bozzini Quartet with music by HCMF resident composer Jürg Frey; at the loud end, fighting the prevailing chill in Bates Mill Blending Shed, …

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  • ConcertsFestivalsPremières

    HCMF 2015: Richard Uttley, United Instruments of Lucilin

    by 5:4 November 22, 2015 • 18:02
    November 22, 2015 • 18:02

    It’s perhaps a little early, following just two concerts yesterday evening, to start describing the characteristics that typify this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. But based on these, and considering the featured composer is Jürg Frey, it would seem that ‘delicacy’ is going to be one of this year’s prevailing …

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5:4
  • About
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    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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