Contemporary Music Festival Research Articles

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 3: 24 November 2013

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival ended with a folk-themed Sunday, to draw together the interests from the Danish and Norwegian representations with British musical cultures, and to provide a markedly different end to this year's festival than others recent. As an audience member, I found that the focus upon learning activities, free concerts and vernacular and improvisatory approaches to music-making provided a strong feeling of community throughout the day. Danish fiddler Poul Bjerager Christiansen, who coordinated the morning's traditional dance workshop, stated that we can choose to see traditional music as a base for creating new music; it is clear that Graham McKenzie wants to see it as a base for creating new festival environments, in which we are invited to explore and make our own connections.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 1: 15–21 November 2013

The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival has, for many years, been the date in the UK new music calendar. Every November, friends and enemies gather under the heavy skies of a Yorkshire micro-climate to listen to, perform and discuss new work. When Graham McKenzie took over as Artistic Director six years ago, there were murmurings that it might change out of all recognition. He certainly made a few bold decisions, introducing more multi-media, cross-disciplinary elements, installations and audio walks, and moving beyond St Paul's Hall to more contemporary spaces like the blending shed at Bates Mill. He also gave the festival's branding the once-over, so that HCMF now always appears as hcmf// (perhaps a nod to the trendy Wire magazine-reading audience he was trying to attract). Little of what he instigated at the start of his tenure has changed, but if there were fears that it would spell the end of ‘proper concerts’, one needn't have worried.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2: 22–23 November 2013

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival's promotion of Scandinavian and Catalan music – through established partnerships with The Danish Composers’ Society and Music Norway, and a more recent association with Catalonia's Institut Ramon Llul – have helped to bring under-represented regions for contemporary music to the foreground of the international scene.

‘Bold Tendencies’: London Contemporary Music Festival, Peckham multi-storey car park, London, 25–28 July, 1–4 August 2013

There is a certain audacity to four young curators adopting the title ‘London Contemporary Music Festival’ for their first large-scale collective venture. For a festival that deliberately sets out to sidestep the musical establishment, there's an aspect of calculated provocation in the appropriation of a title that would seem to be the preserve of that establishment. The gesture, however, goes some way further than staking a symbolic claim. At the same time as the curators (Aisha Orazbayeva, Sam Mackay, Igor Toronyi-Lalic and Lucy Railton, in collaboration with the commissioning body Bold Tendencies, based at the Peckham Multi-Storey Car Park) have effectively bypassed the establishment networks and funding structures, they have set out a clear alternative narrative about how contemporary music may yet be practised and understood.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2012

As diverse and inquiring as ever, the 35th Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival provided nine days of unfamiliar and rarely encountered repertoire, sometimes rewarding, sometimes baffling, but always worth sampling. The 2012 late-November celebration of avant-gardism placed an emphasis on Norway and the voice in its many guises, both strands exemplified by the choice of Trondheim-born vocalist Maja S. K. Ratkje as composer-in-residence. Yet despite this spotlight on vocal and choral works, there was no shortage of instrumental and chamber music, most of it new to Britain.

The Dramaturgical and Compositional Genesis of Luigi Nono's Intolleranza 1960

AbstractIntolleranza 1960, an ‘azione scenica in two parts based on an idea by Angelo Maria Ripellino, music by Luigi Nono’, was first performed on 13 April 1961 during the 24th International Contemporary Music Festival at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. In the aftermath of the première, critics perceived a gap in the work's realization between intentions and results, a gap perceived mainly in political terms. An examination of the dramaturgical and compositional genesis of the work through the sketches suggests a gap of a very different nature. The work as originally announced was to have revolutionary potential, and the innovations were intended by Nono to affect the musical language, the staging, and the dramatic content. But many of these ideas and innovations remained unrealized in the final production, while the ambitious dramaturgical logic underpinning the compositional process – involving ‘character rows’ for each of the principal roles – was never fully implemented. Nono's first theatrical work proves to be the result of a singular compromise between intention and necessity, something quite different from the original project. Nevertheless, the compositional solutions forced on Nono, partly through pressures of time, were to prove decisive in later works, liberating the now ‘autonomous’ interval from parametric predetermination and classic serial grids. Moreover, the work, which had been envisaged as an ideal convergence of dramaturgical and technical principles, became an emblem not only of the new music theatre but of avant-garde theatre in general.

FIRST PERFORMANCES

London, Barbican: James Clarke ‘Untitled No. 2’ Paul ConwayBaku: Qara Qarayev Festival Alecander IvashkinLondon, St George's Church: Benjamin Ellen Malcolm MillerBuxton Opera House; ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ Tim MottersheadLondon and Durham: James MacMillan Paul ConwayLondon, Bridewell Theatre: Robert Hugill Jill BarlowZagreb: International Contemporary Music Festival Donata PremeruFurther reports from Liverpool and London Paul Conway, Martin Anderson, Malcolm Miller

20 Years of Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival: For Whom is this Festival Intended?

20 Years of Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival: For Whom is this Festival Intended?

Going the distance: locating journey, liminality and rites of passage in dance music experiences

‘Dance culture’ is the term now used to describe a large number of connected, inter‐related and overlapping music scenes that have emerged from the warehouse, acid house and rave scenes, and are characterised by electronic music, dancing and the consumption of illicit drugs. This paper examines the construction and consumption of these dance music spaces and experiences. The study adopted a reflexive anthropological methodological package, including participant observation, field trips, interviews and focus groups. It argues that discourses of liminality and rites of passage frame the spatial construction of contemporary large dance music festivals and that travelling to these peculiar configurations of open, closed and negotiable abstracted spaces is both an act of journey and pilgrimage.

A Wireless, Real-time, Distributed Music Composition and Performance System

Developed at the University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom, known for its association with the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and National Sonic Art Forum, Cellmusic presents the performer with a set of composition and performance tools. During a performance, mobile devices communicate with each other, and may create sonic events in a passive (non interactive) mode or influence the performance using the device’s interface. Launched in September 2008, Cellmusic is soon to debut in public performance after having made a number of successful private performances. Its accessibility and portability enable the system to be used by composers and sonic artists who choose to explore a variety of physical environments for composition (such as parks and other public spaces). This paper describes the Java programming environment, the system hierarchy, pieces written for the system, the evolving compositional processes and future considerations for system development.

Why Huddersfield? Media representations of a festival of contemporary music in the ‘unlikeliest’ of places

A festival of contemporary music was established in 1978 in Huddersfield, an industrial town in northern England. The event acquired an international reputation, enjoyed to the present day. Yet the news media continued to report as ‘surprising’ the successful juxtaposition of avant-garde art with an industrial town. An explanation is constructed via an analytic discussion of fashionability, the avant-garde, and the nature of continuing news. This discussion is further set within the context of the generic urban transition from the industrial to the post-industrial, and the movement known as cultural regeneration. The work of Simmel, Nietzsche, and Bourdieu are deployed in these analyses. The concluding argument is that the news media are relating, simultaneously, three stories: that of the success of a festival; that of the cultural regeneration of urban centres seeking a role in a new economy; and a generic rags-to-riches narrative. The news reporting of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is thus a multiple metaphor for a continuing cultural change.

Voices: Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival

Voices: Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival

Sonic Art – Opportunities for a Level Playing Field for Disabled Composers and Performers

Sonic Art is an umbrella term that encompasses electro-acoustic music and sound design which involves the use of technology in its creation and performance. In this paper I wish to argue that, almost uniquely in the area of music, Sonic Art provides a level playing field for composers and performers with disabilities. This is due to the fact that composition and performance conventions in Sonic Art, which rely heavily on the use of sensor technologies and computer software, free practitioners from the usual musician’s prerequisite of having finely developed motor skills; to be a virtuoso requires only that a creative imagination is at work. I will illustrate my argument with a case study of the Wired Ensemble, a groupcomprising musicians with varying disabilities who include amongst their achievements three separate invitations to perform at one of the most prestigious contemporary music festivals in the world, Sonorities, based at Queen’s University, Belfast.The violinist Darragh Morgan, who has performed with the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern and Icebreaker, recently commissioned a new work for violin and live electronics that he premiered with the Wired Ensemble in April 2004 to great acclaim. I will argue that the combination of creativity and cutting-edge technology has taken this group out of the normal circuit of disability events into the mainstream where they are accepted and appreciated on their own terms as musicians regardless of their disabilities. I will further argue that these developments should be taken seriously by further and highereducation institutions and that pathways in Sonic Art should be made more widely available for musicians with disabilities.

Morton Feldman in Johannesburg, July 1983: Ideas and Opinions

Morton Feldman was born in New York on 12 January 1926; he died in Buffalo on 3 September 1987. He was the guest of honour on whom the First South African Broadcasting Corporation Contemporary Music Festival of 2–9 July 1983 hinged. During this time and until 14 July, he conducted master classes for composers at the SABC in Johannesburg. What he said at the master classes was recorded onto 11 cassettes. The present article is an investigation into his thoughts and opinions on composing as expressed in these tapes. In order to portray his humour, style and specific nuances, we provide copious quotations in the endnotes.

ORDINARY MATTERS: CHRISTIAN WOLFF ON HIS RECENT MUSIC

Christian Wolff, who turned 70 in March this year, is the last remaining member of the so-called New York School of Composers. Very briefly he studied with John Cage, and was exchanging thoughts with Earle Brown, Morton Feldman and David Tudor from the age of 16 in 1950. Along with friends and colleagues Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski, he began in the 1970s to draw upon musical ideas that reflected his social and political concerns in a more direct manner. The following is an extract of a much longer interview which took place during the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in November 2002 where Christian Wolff was a featured composer. Wolff discusses his recent compositions, his attitude to writing for voice, and his approach to performance and to begin with, recording.

Vilnius: The Gaida Festival, October 2002 (plus recent CD releases of Lithuanian Music)

There's a heartening number of contemporary music festivals in the former Soviet-bloc countries, and in the three Baltic republics in particular: it's as if, after decades of the suppression of modern music – even though less severe there than elsewhere in the USSR – they're all desperate to make up for lost time. The Gaida Festival, founded in 1991 and an annual event in Vilnius in mid-October, is one of the most ambitious: ten concerts in as many days, presenting contemporary Lithuanian composers, usually in first performances, in conjunction with others from further afield (among them this year Saariaho, Tan Dun, Cage, Jan Sandström – with Christian Lindberg astride the ubiquitous Motorbike Concerto – and Gubaidulina). Naturally, such occasions are ragbags, with failures among the successes – but young composers have to be able to hear their miscalculations, and Gaida is commendably generous with its time.

Vítězslava Kaprálová: a remarkable voice in 20th-century Czech Music

It was with enormous pride in the achievements of his 23-year-old protégé Vítězslava Kaprálová that Bohuslav Martinů wrote the following in his review of the 1938 International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) Festival, held in London:The very first item on the programme of the Festival was Military Sinfouictta by Vitězslava Kaprálová – an opening with great promise for both the festival and the composer. Her performance was awaited with interest as well as some curiosity – a girl with a baton is quite an unusual phenomenon – and when our ‘little girl conductor’ (as the English newspapers called her) appeared before the orchestra, she was welcomed by a supportive audience. She stood before the orchestra with great courage and both her composition and performance earned her respect and applause from the excellent BBC orchestra, the audience, and the critics. … Kaprálová's international debut is a success, promising and encouraging.

International Computer Music Festival

the world. The ICMF, on the other hand, took place this year for the first time. This festival replaced the annual Kobe International Contemporary Music Festival, and was a coproduction of Xebec Hall and composer Kazuo Uehara, president of the Japanese Computer Music Association (JACOM). The programming was quite wideranging: two concerts of by Japanese composers, centered around members of JACOM and composers of the Kansai region (Kobe-Kyoto-Osaka) with a few additional guests; two concerts of chosen by a Franco-Japanese jury; a concert of Korean organized by the Korean Society for ElectroAcoustic Music (KEAMS); a performance by Sensorband; and finally, a whole day devoted to the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel/Groupe de Recherches Musicales (Paris) in honor of the 50th anniversary of musique concrete and the 40th anniversary of the INA/GRM. In spite of the program's diversity, it was difficult to discern the connection between the different, and very uneven, parts. The festival was billed as international, and while the inclusion of GRM was certainly an international element, and while there was an open call for works judged by an international jury, one would have expected the choice of Japanese to have been representative of current computer music in the entire country. Instead, the program contained pretty much the same participants found in previous years at the Kobe festival: members of JACOM and composers of the Kansai region connected for the most part to universities or research institutes and belonging more or less to the same network of personal relations. The producers nonetheless tried to make an effort to enlarge the JACOM/Kansai group by inviting Tamami Tono, Yoshihiro Kanno, and Atau Tanaka from Tokyo, but this effort was still too weak for a festival claiming to be international. The apparent network of relationships underlying the program is a problem not so much with the organizers of this festival as with the cultural life of Japan: there does not exist, to my knowledge, any channel of communication (newspapers, journals, Internet lists, broadcasts, etc.) that is freely accessible to artists, technologists, critics, or others-whatever their

…many possibilities…

The following is taken from an interview between, Stephen Davismoon and André Richard, a long-time friend and associate of Luigi Nono who is now the Artistic Director of Das Experimentalstudio der Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung, in Freiburg Germany. The interview took place during the Nono retrospective at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in November 1995.

Computers for Performers: Crossing the Boundaries for the Future

I have been using computers for music since 1991. During this time, I have given presentations at many computer music conferences, including three International Computer Music Conferences (ICMC) and two festivals. I also have been actively integrating musical works using computers in other contexts, such as my classical recitals and contemporary music festivals, and have been fortunate to become acquainted with wonderful colleagues in this field around the world. As a graduate of traditional classical music schools, this experience, together with meeting people in other disciplines, has opened many opportunities to enhance my vision of musical art, and to reevaluate and reorganize my lifelong musical training. I hope to keep learning, growing, and integrating new elements into what I have learned so far. As a musi-