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AFEKT 2024 (Part 2) - 5:4
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. Trumpeter Marco Blaauw’s opening night recital, with Tammo Sumera on electronics, was especially…
AFEKT 2024 (Interlude): Ryoji Ikeda + Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir / Solo Exhibition - 5:4
In between the concerts and events at this year’s AFEKT festival, while i was in Tartu i was able to experience the latest venture from Japanese multimedia artist Ryoji Ikeda. Taking place in the spectacular Estonian National Museum, it comprised a solo exhibition and the world première of a collaboration…
AFEKT 2024 (Part 1) - 5:4
While the theoretical theme of this year’s AFEKT festival was music theatre, in practice what was projected strongest was intimacy, in terms of one-to-one communication. This was due to the fact that the festival focused primarily on solo performances given by, among others, members of Ensemble Musikfabrik, and even in…
Mads Emil Dreyer - Disappearer - 5:4
i want to flag up a recent release by Danish composer Mads Emil Dreyer, featuring two works i previously encountered at the Dark Music Days festival in Iceland. More specifically, two works and two sibling works, as the four pieces included on his new album Disappearer comprise a pair each…
Tarmo Johannes - Tumesoe - 5:4
During the considerable time i’ve spent in Estonia throughout the last decade, one of the musicians who has consistently impressed me the most is Tarmo Johannes. His talents are multi-faceted: primarily a flautist, he’s also a long-term member of Ensemble U: and the Ensemble of the Estonian Electronic Music Society,…
Rolf Wallin - Five Seasons / Whirld / Stride / Spirit - 5:4
i recently had cause to remark on the pro / con nature of portrait discs, and here we are again, with a new album of music by Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin. i’ve often been impressed by Wallin’s work, never more so than in his large scale collaborative work The Otheroom,…
Leif Segerstam - Symphony No. 344 "Saluting a royal soul…", bordercrossingly… (World Première) - 5:4
i want to pay a brief tribute to Finnish conductor and composer Leif Segerstam, who died yesterday at the age of 80. As i noted a few years ago, i’m not a conductor fanboy, but Segerstam was one of the few who consistently got me excited every time he was…
John Oswald - plexure '24; plexures (Part 2) - 5:4
i stressed before the primacy of Plexure within the context of these two new albums. Yet the extent to which Oswald has been irresisitably drawn back to this work suggests that the idea of a ‘definitive’ version is meaningless. Indeed, the extensiveness of the so-called “bonus tracks” (most of which…
John Oswald - Plexure update - 5:4
Part 2 of my deep dive into John Oswald‘s extensive reissue of all things Plexure is coming soon. However, in the meantime there’s a time-critical update relevant for any other plex-heads out there. For this weekend only, Oswald has made available two additional Plexure-related items. The first is what Oswald…
John Oswald - plexure '24; plexures (Part 1) - 5:4
It seems as if an age has passed since i last wrote about the music of Canadian composer John Oswald. It was actually only four years ago, but a pandemic has come and gone during that time, which perhaps makes it seem longer. At that time, Oswald was beginning to…
Proms 2024: the premières (Part 3) - 5:4
It was only a few weeks ago that i was exploring music that took its inspirational origin from grandparental reminiscences. Then, the subject matter was dead fishermen, whereas this time it’s … cows. That might not seem a particularly promising starting point for a new song cycle, and yet Laulut…
Proms 2024: the premières (Part 2) - 5:4
Thomas Adès has always tended to be as qualitatively erratic as he is consistently overhyped, but his new orchestral piece Aquifer finds him back on the right side of accomplishment. The title refers to a subterranean stratum through which water can flow, and it’s a superb descriptor for both the…
Proms 2024: the premières (Part 1) - 5:4
Wow, what a shitshow. Something occurred to me, while spending time with the first cluster of noxious specimens being given world, European or UK premières at this year’s Proms. In contrast to the notion of lying by omission, conveying a falsehood via things we don’t say, i realised that to…
Lee Fraser - Scii Tenaph / Ghost Semantics - 5:4
Honestly, it’s like that old joke about waiting for buses. You wait years for a new release from Lee Fraser, and then two come along at once. Hot on the heels of Live at Parken, Vienna, 05.08.23, released in March, comes a new album, Scii Tenaph, not so much accompanied…
Christopher McFall - I Throw The Switch On The Midnight Snake - 5:4
It was with no small excitement that i heard a few weeks ago that US sound artist Christopher McFall was bringing out a new album. Not only is McFall one of the most captivating artists working with field recordings that i’ve ever encountered, but it’s also been no fewer than…
Bára Gísladóttir - Orchestral Works; Growl Power - 5:4
Portrait albums can be a double-edged sword. They’re obviously a great opportunity to present a showcase of someone’s work. Hardly surprising, then, that for many composers, securing that first album devoted to their music is regarded as an important, even vital step on the path toward something that might approximate…
Amy Brandon - Lysis - 5:4
Lysis is the name of Canadian composer Amy Brandon‘s latest album, featuring eight works for various chamber, ensemble and electroacoustic groupings. The word ‘lysis’ is a word with several meanings, mostly biological, primarily referring to the breakdown of cells. There’s something very apt in that choice of word for Brandon’s…
Tróndur Bogason & Aldubáran - The Distance Between Us - 5:4
Another of my exciting recent Faroese discoveries, while preparing for the recent World New Music Days, is The Distance Between Us, a collaboration between composer Tróndur Bogason and the Faroes’ principal new music ensemble, Aldubáran (who were prominent during WNMD). In many respects the album’s title, and accompanying artwork, tell…
Klingra - …eftir - 5:4
As part of my preparation for festivals, i invariably spend time beforehand with music that’s directly related either to where i’m going and / or to what i’ll be hearing. In the case of the recent World New Music Days, this involved revisiting a lot of music i encountered during…
World New Music Days 2024, Faroe Islands (Part 5) - 5:4
Several events that i’d had high hopes for at this year’s World New Music Days turned out to be disappointingly underwhelming. Among them was the concert given by Danish choir ARS NOVA which, overall, featured surprisingly unadventurous repertoire, mostly standard text settings with almost nothing really exploring the voice as…
World New Music Days 2024, Faroe Islands (Part 4) - 5:4
This year’s World New Music Days was, not surprisingly, an excellent opportunity to experience that most rare and unknown quantity: Faroese contemporary music. i’ve already mentioned how a significant proportion of composers from the Faroe Islands based their work on extant musical ideas and materials, usually folk-related. However, this wasn’t…
World New Music Days 2024, Faroe Islands (Part 3) - 5:4
i wrote before about the way the World New Music Days acts like a hadron collider, smashing together diverse stylistic and aesthetic ideas from around the world. One of the startling truths to emerge from this violent eclecticism is that, what makes bad music bad, wherever it comes from in…
World New Music Days 2024, Faroe Islands (Interlude) - 5:4
A lot more than just music took place during this year’s World New Music Days in the Faroe Islands. The International Society of Contemporary Music’s series of daily committee meetings culminated in the final vote to decide about the 2026 festival. There was only one bid: China. Not surprisingly, all…
World New Music Days 2024, Faroe Islands (Part 2) - 5:4
Despite being primarily a chamber music festival, the concerts at this year’s World New Music Days in the Faroe Islands devoted significant time to works involving electronics. Five of these were installations, of which two were noteworthy. One was Ringar í Vatni [Rings in Water] by Faroese musician Heðin Ziska…
World New Music Days 2024, Faroe Islands (Part 1) - 5:4
It’s not really possible to understand, and fully engage with, a music festival without some reasonable appreciation of the context in which it’s happening. In the case of the annual ISCM World New Music Days, such cultural relativism is even more vital. On the one hand, it’s possible to think…
viibra - viibra - 5:4
Anyone familiar with Björk’s album Utopia – my Best Album of 2017 – will be aware of the ensemble of flutes that features prominently in most of its tracks. Seven of those flautists, Áshildur Haraldsdóttir, Berglind María Tómasdóttir, Björg Brjánsdóttir, Dagný Marinósdóttir, Sólveig Magnúsdóttir, Steinunn Vala Pálsdóttir and Þuríður Jónsdóttir,…
Grażyna Bacewicz - Complete Symphonic Works Vol. 2; Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 - 5:4
It was a little under a year ago that the CPO label brought out the first volume in their new series exploring the Complete Symphonic Works of Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. As i pointed out in my review, they effectively jumped into her music halfway through, beginning in the early…
Elif Yalvaç - Vection - 5:4
i sometimes wonder whether i’ve come to prize obfuscation in music more than clarity. When things are unclear, things get interesting, the ear and mind work harder, there’s potentially something to be discovered. This is one of the primary aspects that i’ve been revelling in when spending time with Turkish…
Nestor - Bórdice - 5:4
For many years i’ve been a keen follower of the work of Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Kramer, better known as Coppice, and have previously written about their unique electroacoustic output. There are many things that draw me to it, one of the strongest being the way in which they create,…
Baltic & Estonian Music Days 2024 (Part 4) - 5:4
Two of the events at this year’s Baltic & Estonian Music Days were especially memorable. The first was given by one of the finest choirs in the world, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. Conducted by Mai Simson in the somewhat simple, functional interior of Tartu’s otherwise imposing St Paul’s Church,…
Baltic & Estonian Music Days 2024 (Part 3) - 5:4
The opening weekend of this year’s Baltic & Estonian Music Days featured the final concert of their annual Young Composer competition, now in its tenth year. It was encouraging to witness that most rare of phenomena: the genuinely best works being the ones receiving the awards. All of the music…
Baltic & Estonian Music Days 2024 (Part 2) - 5:4
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,…
Baltic & Estonian Music Days 2024 (Part 1) - 5:4
Three years ago, sitting down to watch the inaugural Baltic Music Days – an entirely online event, due to the ongoing effects of COVID – i regularly found myself wondering to what extent “Baltic music” was a phrase that held any particular meaning. i came away on that occasion feeling…
COMMUTE 2024 (Part 2) - 5:4
The COMMUTE festival, based at the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre, takes its name from its three primary spheres of interest: COMposition, MUsic, TEchnology. i’ve mentioned previously the mixture of success and failure with regard to audiovisual works at this year’s COMMUTE, and this polarity reared its head on…