IT HAS been a week of excitement, musically speaking, with composers, musicians, performers and music buffs packing the town for yet another blast of contemporary music.
There have been concerts, music theatre, installations, multi-media presentations, workshops, talks and film and a real cosmopolitan feel about the town.
At Sunday’s extraordinary performance in Bates’s Mill, where musicians and performers from Birmingham’s Contemporary Music Group retold the story of Rumpelstiltskin, my neighbours in the audience were from Germany, Holland plus a Canadian.
All were glad to be out of the November gales and driving rain and delighted by the atmosphere of Bates’s Mill.
Tomorrow, BBC Radio 3 will be broadcasting a concert live from the festival – the UK premiere of Mesopotamia by composer Richard Barrett.
The piece will be played at Bates’s Mill by the London Sinfonietta and fORCH, which was formed four years ago around the electro-acoustic duo FURT which comprises Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer.
Tomorrow, musicians from the Portuguese Remix Ensemble will play the music of Jonathan Harvey.
Join them at the Town Hall at 4pm for a fantastic journey through distant and exotic landscapes.
The ensemble will also play the UK premiere of Nachtmusik 1 and Uberschreiten by James Dillon.
At St Paul’s Hall tomorrow night (7pm) there will be a clutch of premieres with musikFabrik performing pieces from some of the finest English-speaking composers of our time, spanning three generations and reflecting the variety in new music today.
Most far-reaching and open to outer-European influences is Liza Lim; deeply rooted in European contemporary music is Jonathan Harvey; and from the younger generation is Rebecca Saunders. What the new voices have to offer can be heard in the world premiere of Richard Glover's new work commissioned by the festival. Full details on the website www.hcmf.co.uk.
