& CULTURE It’s wonderful, it’s I
The full programme for the 40th Edition of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (hcmf//) has now been announced and we are revealing all today.
The 10-day Festival – one of Europe’s leading celebrations of contemporary music – takes place from Friday, November 17, to Sunday, November 26.
It will feature 29 world premieres – of which 13 have been commissioned or co-commissioned by hcmf// – and 93 UK Premieres.
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is Britain’s oldest and best known celebration of new music and is renowned across the world for its quality and innovation.
Founded in 1978, the Festival has played host to many of the great composers of the 20th century such as Stockhausen, Cage, Boulez and Messiaen. Under its present artistic director, Graham McKenzie, the festival has expanded its brief to include an ever wider definition of new music and the related arts, from notated music to electro-acoustic music, improvisation, noise and multimedia sound art.
The festival’s main partners are BBC Radio 3 and the University of Huddersfield.
The opening weekend includes the World Premiere of a major new work by James Dillon given by leading Scottish ensemble, Red Note, the UK Premiere of a suite of new works by Brian Ferneyhough for which the Arditti Quartet and Germany’s Ensemble Modern have joined forces and a newly-minted work by pianist and composer Rolf Hind exploring memory, ritual, sacrifice and the constant remaking of the oldest things through the magical symbolism of sound.
There is a focus on key works by two remarkable American figures – the late Pauline Oliveros, a central figure in the development of experimental and postwar
The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is Britain’s oldest and best celebration of new music
electronic music in the US and proponent of ‘deep listening’ – and the poised, thoughtful chamber music of Torontobased composer Linda Catlin Smith.
If Dillon and Ferneyhough represent the ‘new complexity’ end of the current contemporary music spectrum, there is also something of a rock sensibility running through this year’s festival with European artists and ensembles including zeitkratzer, 2e2m, Kobe Van Cauwenberghe, ensemble Nikel and Alexander Schubert revisiting classic rock scores by Lou Reed, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and club culture.
A major audio-visual exhibition at Huddersfield Art Gallery runs throughout the festival celebrating 60 years of the influential Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES), and a concert of premieres by the Polish Radio Choir, including a world premiere by the British-based Japanese composer Dai Fujikura. These headline a wide-ranging package of events from Poland presented in association with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Presenting the work of emerging composers is central to the festival’s mission and no more so than during its closing weekend with the world premieres of works by five young British composers – Laura Bowler, Laura Cannell, Kit Downes, Lauren Sarah Hayes and Laurence Osborn.
Ensembles, soloists and composers from Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, the United States and Mexico also feature prominently in a vibrantly international programme.
There are curiosities too including psychedelic Tibetan chanting from cult Moscow band Phurpa in an hcmf// exclusive.
Experimental American folk artist, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Sam Amidon also makes his Huddersfield debut with a highly individual pro-