PRESS RELEASE
30 September 2015
From: Bonner & Hindley 0113 243 4713 james@bonnerandhindley.co.uk
HUDDERSFIELD CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL (hcmf//)
Friday November 20 – Sunday November 29, 2015
Headline concerts now on sale
Highlights include UK Premieres by La Monte Young, George Lewis, John Zorn
Composer in Residence is Swiss composer Jürg Frey
hcmf// is the UK's leading contemporary music festival and takes place across venues in and
around Huddersfield over 10 days every November. Regarded as a weather-vane for the state of
contemporary music in all its forms, the Festival is a 'must' for audiences, composers, ensembles
and commentators from all over the world.
Headline concerts of the 38th hcmf// are now on sale via the Festival’s website (hcmf.co.uk), or
through the ticket hotline – 01484 430528.
UK Premieres of new works by American composers La Monte Young, George Lewis and John
Zorn are amongst the highlights of the 38th edition of Huddersfield Contemporary Music
Festival (hcmf//) which takes place from Friday, November 20 - Sunday, November 29, 2015.
The Swiss composer and sound artist Jürg Frey is Composer in Residence for the 2015 Festival.
Credited with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces, he is a key figure in the influential
European Wandelweiser Group. At Huddersfield, his music will be performed by Festival regulars
Quatuor Bozzini (Sunday, November 22), by the Konus Quartett (Tuesday, November 24), by
Ensemble Grizzana, featuring the composer himself as clarinettist (Friday, November 27), and by
pianist Philip Thomas (Friday, November 27). Frey's residency is supported by the Swiss Arts
Council Pro Helvetia.
Austrian supergroup Klangforum Wien, conducted by Clement Power, opens the 2015 Festival
with a programme of UK premieres by Pierluigi Billone, Agata Zubel and Peter Jakober (Friday,
November 20). Vibrant young British group, The Riot Ensemble, continue the opening night
celebrations at Huddersfield's Bates Mill, with a multimedia portrait concert of the Polish composer
Jagoda Szmytka whose works weave sounds, images and texts into multi-layered constellations.
The concert also introduces a Polish focus which runs throughout the Festival.
George Lewis is an American composer, electronic performer, trombone player and scholar in the
fields of improvisation and experimental music, as well as a pioneer in computer music. hcmf//
celebrates Lewis's multi-faceted musical personality with the UK premiere of his opera Afterword,
an opera (Sunday, November 22) given by the US-based International Contemporary
Ensemble, fresh from its Chicago performance in October. Making its UK debut, the charismatic
composer/performer ensemble Berlin Splitter Orchester continues the George Lewis focus with
the UK premiere of Creative Construction SetTM (Friday, November 27), in which they are joined
by Lewis.
Splitter Music, which shows the Berlin Splitter Orchester at its most comfortable, in the creative
borderland between composed and improvised music, is the ensemble's second concert for hcmf//
(Saturday, November 28).
The UK Premiere of a work by American minimalist La Monte Young, whose works have
sometimes been likened to Mark Rothko's nearly monochromatic canvasses, is an undisputed
coup for hcmf//. The work in question is The Melodic Version (1984) of The Second Dream of The
High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer from The Four Dreams of China (1962), a 60 minute
piece which consists entirely of four notes played drone-like by eight muted trumpets. All the action
is underneath the notes in little variations of breath, tone and time. Musikfabrik's Marco Blaauw
has assembled an elite group of fellow trumpeters, The Theatre of Eternal Music Brass
Ensemble, to rise to the challenge (Sunday, November 22).
The Arditti Quartet's hcmf// appearances are always a Festival hot ticket – invariably the first to
sell out. The Quartet's 2015 concert (Sunday, November 29) should be no exception: its
programme opens with the UK Premiere of John Zorn's latest work for strings, The Remedy of
Fortune, and closes with Harrison Birtwistle's Quartet No 3: The Silk House Sequences – an
hcmf// co-commission.
The Festival also pays tribute to German composer Jakob Ullmann, known for his austere
minimalism and absorption with barely audible sounds. La seconda canción del ángel disparecido,
an hcmf// commission, will receive its World Premiere on Tuesday, November 24, performed by a
hand-picked chamber ensemble.
The Festival's closing concert (Sunday, November 29) is something of a collector's piece – the first
appearance in a decade of the classic line-up of pianist John Tilbury, drummer Eddie Prévost
and guitarist Keith Rowe, celebrating the 50th anniversary of AMM. The legendary free
improvisation group, founded in 1965, has been deeply influential in the field of improvised music –
its past and present members sharing a common interest in exploring music beyond the
boundaries of conventional jazz.
Other hcmf// highlights on sale now are concerts by London Sinfonietta (Saturday, November
21), including an hcmf// co-commission from Laurence Crane (UK) and a new work by Marisol
Jiménez (Mexico); Ensemble Lucilin from Luxembourg (Saturday, November 21) including the
World Premiere of Maura Lanza's The Kempelen Machine – also an hcmf// co-commission – and,
from France, Quatuor Diotima (Saturday, November 28). Diotima's programme includes the
World Premieres of two hcmf// commissions, by Daniel Figols Cuevas (Catalonia) and Thomas
Simaku (Albania/UK).
Throughout the programme there will be a series of Learning & Participation events including:
Sound System Culture – delivered in partnership with Let's Go Yorkshire, the team behind the
recently released book and film, Sound System Culture. The project explores the culture that was
prevalent in Huddersfield in the 70s and 80s, initially developing from the Caribbean community but
eventually expanding until it became world renowned in the global reggae and dub scene. The
Sound System Culture project has created Heritage HiFi, a unique interactive vintage-style sound
system built by Paul Huxtable. This will be housed at the Festival and will form the focus of this
year’s Pop-Up Art School on Sunday, November 29, exploring the many different facets of the
culture through engaging with music via art, media and crafts, facilitated by students from the
PGCE Art, Design and Music programme.
British Music Collection Tours – hcmf// is teaming up with Heritage Quay to offer a tour of the
incredible British Music Collection which is housed at the University of Huddersfield. Visitors are
invited to explore the masses of scores, vinyl, tapes and film that are housed in Heritage Quay’s
purpose built space beneath the University. Tours will take place at 11am on both Wednesday,
November 25 and Friday, November 27. Pre-booking is not required. Heritage Quay is located in
the basement of the Student Central Building.
Up in the Mountains – the team who brought Korall Koral to Huddersfield in 2012 are returning to
hcmf// with a participatory musical theatre performance piece for 0-3 year olds that explores
mountain regions and the sounds and objects that can be found there. Up in the Mountains will
include music composed specially for this age-group by former hcmf// Composer in Residence,
Maja S K Ratkje. Children will be invited to explore the objects and instruments in a hands-on
session at the end of the event. Performances will take place on Monday, November 23 at
12.30pm and 2pm at the Hudawi Centre.
Just a Vibration – a project with renowned Indian bass guitarist, Shri, to create new music fusing
the traditions of Brass Bands and Indian Classical music. Working in partnership with The
Hammonds Saltaire Band, Bradford Music Service and South Asian Arts UK (Leeds), the project
has brought together musicians from very different backgrounds, yet all rooted in the heart of
Yorkshire’s cultural landscape. The outcome performance takes place at 11am on Saturday,
November 28 as part of hcmf// 2015 as well as at the London Jazz Festival.
The full hcmf// programme will be on sale from early October.
ends
Press Contact for hcmf//:
Bonner & Hindley
0113 243 4713
james@bonnerandhindley.co.uk
A selection of images can be found here: hcmf// 2015 images folder
Headline concerts now on sale at www.hcmf.co.uk:
Fri November 20
6pm
9.30pm
Klangforum Wien
The Riot Ensemble
St. Paul's Hall
Blending Shed, Bates Mill
Sat November 21
12.30pm
7.30pm
London Sinfonietta
Ensemble Lucilin
St. Paul's Hall
St. Paul's Hall
Sun November 22
1pm
7pm
10pm
Quatuor Bozzini
Afterword: An Opera
The Theatre of Eternal Music
Brass Ensemble:
La Monte Young
St. Paul's Hall
Lawrence Batley Theatre
St. Paul's Hall
Tues November 24
12 noon
10pm
Konus Quartett: Jürg Frey
Jakob Ullmann
St. Paul's Hall
Town Hall
Fri November 27
12 noon
7pm
Ensemble Grizzana: Jürg Frey Phipps Hall
Berlin Splitter Orchester +
St. Paul's Hall
George Lewis
Philip Thomas: Jürg Frey
Phipps Hall
9pm
Sat November 28
12 noon
10pm
Quatuor Diotima
splittermusic
St. Paul's Hall
Bates Mill
Sun November 29
12 noon
7.30pm
Arditti Quartet
AMM
St. Paul's Hall
St. Paul's Hall
About Jürg Frey, hcmf// Composer in Residence
Jürg Frey was born in 1953 in Aarau, Switzerland. Following his musical education at the
Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, he turned to a career as a clarinetist – however his
activities as composer soon came to the foreground. Frey developed his own language as a
composer and sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces. His work is marked by an
elementary non-extravagance of sound, a sensibility for the qualities of the material, and precision
of compositional approach. His compositions sometimes bypass instrumentation and duration
altogether and touch on aspects of sound art. He has worked with compositional series, as well as
with language and text. Some of these activities appear in small editions or as artist's books as
individual items and small editions (Edition Howeg, Zurich; weiss kunstbewegung, Berlin; complice,
Berlin). His music and recordings are published by Edition Wandelweiser. Frey has been invited to
workshops as visiting composer and for composer portraits at the Universität der Künste Berlin, the
Universität Dortmund and several times at Northwestern University and CalArts. Some of the other
places his work has developed are the concerts at the Kunstraum Düsseldorf, the Wandelweiserin-Residence-Veranstaltungen in Vienna, the Ny music concerts in Boras (Sweden), the
cooperation with Cologne pianist John McAlpine, the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), QO-2 (Bruxelles),
Die Maulwerker, incidental music, as well as the regular stays in Berlin (where during the last years
many of his compositions were premiered). Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten
Ensemble which has presented concerts for more than 15 years in Europe, North America and
Japan. Frey also organizes the concert series moments musicaux aarau as a forum for
contemporary music.