Ukraine

As i mentioned previously, the majority of this year’s AFEKT was focused on solo performers – primarily members of Ensemble Musikfabrik – with or without electronics, and these proved to be the strongest events of the festival.

As i mentioned previously, this year’s combined Baltic & Estonian Music Days took place in the southern city of Tartu, due to it being one of the three 2024 European Capitals of Culture. To mark the occasion, Märt-Matis Lill composed an elaborate fanfare to herald the start of the festival, …

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 …

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, …

It’s been a disappointing, demoralising experience spending time with the most recent batch of premières at the Proms. Derrick Skye‘s Nova Plexus, premièred by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the end of last month, was easily the most egregious of them, being yet another example of the cinematised …

Back in April, when i summarised the new music featured at this year’s Proms, i mentioned that the time might have come for me to finally give up trying to find some enthusiasm for its safe, unimaginative offerings. The 2023 season has been up and running for a couple of …

i want to say a few words about Valentin Silvestrov‘s Requiem für Larissa, which was actually released last autumn, but has only recently found its way into my ears. Perhaps there’s never been a more apposite time for a Ukrainian Requiem. Composed in 1999, the piece is as deeply personal …

Despite the quantity of abstract music featured at this year’s Estonian Music Days, it wasn’t surprising – with the theme “soul” looming over the Tallinn part of the festival – that many composers avoided abstraction and sought to create more tangible, referential and / or emotionally-charged music. Indeed, this was …

Today marks the 60th birthday of Ukraine-born, Estonia-based composer Galina Grigorjeva. Her music over the last decade or so has progressively moved more closely in both character and ideology to that of Arvo Pärt, rooted in musical simplicity, articulating aspects of Orthodox religious belief. In the case of her 2005 …

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 …

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. …

While the answer to the question, “What is it good for?” continues to be “Absolutely nothing!” where war is concerned, there’s a tiny sliver of comfort to be gained from the fact that the ongoing outrage perpetrated by the Russian regime has thrown a spotlight onto aspects of Ukrainian culture …

A disconcerting aspect of some of the pieces performed at this year’s Estonian Music Days was the extent to which their material, language and / or behaviour was obviously begged, borrowed and / or stolen from heavily-worn musical conventions, to the point of outright cliché. This was especially apparent in …

Even at the first concert of the first day of Borealis 2022, i was realising how much the festival felt different from the norm. i go to a lot of festivals (notwithstanding the upheavals of the last two years), and for the most part, aside from cultural distinctions, they’re all …