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Foto: Kristin Amparo
Nyhet16 November 2017
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (hcmf//), celebrating its 40th edition this year, has announced a new creative partnership with STIM in Sweden, which will bring a wide range of contemporary Swedish composers and performers to Huddersfield this year and to future Festivals.

The Swedish programme is supported by STIM's Council for the Promotion of Swedish Music together with Music Export Sweden, Kultur i Väst and Musik i Syd.

This year's Swedish programme at hcmf// includes the world premiere of a new work by internationally acclaimed Malin Bång, performed by Karin Hellqvist (violin/electronics) and Natasha Barrett (live electronics), as well as an hcmf// debut for Swedish noise orchestra GGR Betong, performing an international programme including the UK premiere of Anna Eriksson's Three minutes and ten seconds. On the final day of the festival, Ensemble Grizzana gives the world premiere of Magnus Granberg's How Vain Are All our Frail Delights?

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 including 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 electroacoustic music, improvisation, noise, and multi-media sound art.

Welcoming the new partnership with Sweden, hcmf//'s Artistic Director, Graham McKenzie, said:

“I am delighted to launch this new creative partnership between hcmf// and Sweden on the occasion of our 40th festival edition. I believe that this is a vibrant period for music in Sweden across all genres - contemporary, improvisation, electronic, and sound art - and hcmf// is excited to explore the full range of possibilities going forward.”

Responding, Mattias Franzén, Director of Operations for STIM Council for the Promotion of Swedish Music said:

"To be able to initiate this new Swedish/UK creative partnership at hcmf//'s 40th edition is a singular honour, especially since the tone of this year's Festival is so avowedly forward-looking. When, in 2018, hcmf// enters its fifth decade, we look forward to exploring the future together with one of the world's leading festivals for new and experimental music."

Press Contact

Faith Wilson
Arts Publicity, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
[email protected], +44 (0)20 7635 8775 / +44 (0)7941 137453

Erik Åslin
Press and Public Affairs manager, STIM
[email protected], +46 (0)72 702 66 44

More about the Swedish programmes at hcmf//:

Karin Hellqvist (violin/electronics) and Natasha Barrett (live electronics)

Sunday, November 19 at 5pm (Phipps Hall, Creative Arts Building, University of Huddersfield)

Swedish violinist Karin Hellqvist continues her collaboration with composers Malin Bång and Natasha Barrett, presenting a programme of premieres each exploring, in different ways, the lurking fear of where our current geological age (Anthroposcene) will lead us. The programme comprises the World premiere of Malin Bång’s Siku, and two UK premieres: While she was dreaming by Jenny Hettne and Sagittarius A* by Natasha Barrett.

http://www.karinhellqvist.com/

GGR Betong

Wednesday, November 22 at 10pm (Bates Mill Blending Shed, Huddersfield)

GGR Betong was formed in 2014 as a tribute orchestra to the celebrated Polish noise musician and enfant terrible Zbigniew Karkowski, who during the 1980s lived in Gothenburg – leaving an indelible impression on its streets and music venues. What began as a one-off concert to perform a particular piece of Karkowski's turned into an orchestra which has developed an expanding repertoire of noise music.

The group's hcmf// programme includes works by Karkowski, Anna Eriksson, Pauline Oliveros, Tetsuo Furudate, Ruta Vitkauskaite and Lasse Marhaug.

Magnus Granburg - World premiere: How Vain Are All our Frail Delights?

Ensemble Grizzana
Sunday, November 26 at 1pm (St Paul's Hall, University of Huddersfield)

Magnus Granberg is a composer and performer working at the intersection between contemporary chamber music and improvisation. He is based in Stockholm.

His latest work, How Vain Are All our Frail Delights?, commissioned by the acclaimed Yorkshire-based label Another Timbre and given its world premiere at hcmf// by Ensemble Grizzana, is loosely based on William Byrd's Oh Lord How Vain. Granberg describes the composition as 'sets of musical materials from which the performers can choose what to play, and some suggestions as to how to treat the materials...Whether the outcome is to be considered vain, frail or delightful is, like life itself, up to each one of us - listeners and performers alike'.

www.magnusgranberg.com