Allegro Largo Scherzo Finale

Previous Post Culprit #3: Feminism (I’ll try to explain myself) An article I saw  on Gloria Coates’ website noted that, throughout the course of Western art music, symphonies by female composers have been few and far between. In large part this is due to the general lack of female composers until the beginning of the [...]

It’s now been some time since the ‘sneak preview’ for the 2010 Festival was announced, so it’s about time for speculation about what else is scheduled for next year. From a music perspective – and I really have no other perspective – the key announcement in the preview was the Mahler ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ – and I suspect [...]

Cigarettes for Ping Pong Hermione Johnson: The Deep Blue Sky Alexandra Hay: Moon Song King Pan Ng: ExtremeLand I wasn’t sure what to expect in turning up to Sound image EXTREME Lands, but my composition tutor (Alex Hay) was having a composition performed, so I decided to turn up. The concert began slightly unexpectedly, with [...]

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Havona Christian Wolz: Atropa-Bella-Donna The world will never, unfortunately, receive a full performance of Stockhausen’s Klang; Stockhausen had completed 21 of the 24 component works when he died in 2007; Havona one of the last of these, and did not receive a performance until the beginning of the year. Nicholas Isherwood is well-known [...]

Chris Gendall: Wax Lyrical Jeff Henderson: UnCage my HeArt Salvatore Sciarrino: Quaderno di Strada Stroma’s second concert of the year could scarcely have felt different to the first. The uniquely lyrical modernism of Jenny McLeod, David Downes’ ferocious rhythmic onslaught and Michael Norris’ fierce technicality were replaced  by music of pure aggression, at least for [...]