Available online/BBC Sounds
Brand new music from well-known and less familiar composers included premieres from James Dillon and Riot Ensemble’s lockdown commissions
There was no need for a November pilgrimage to Britain’s leading new-music event this year. Instead Huddersfield contemporary music festival came to us, concentrated into a hectic weekend of events, some of which were broadcast live on Radio 3 from the BBC’s Maida Vale studios and the Royal Festival Hall, while others were streamed on the festival’s website.
Despite the enforced changes, though, the reshaped concerts still managed to include at least some of the works and performers that had been planned for this year’s festival. There was the healthy mix of music from well-known and less familiar composers that has come to characterise the Huddersfield festival, ending with two premieres from James Dillon, a composer who has been closely associated with it for more than 40 years.