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Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is one of the leading new music events in Europe. In 2020 it was virtual and we meet some of the artists and composers who took part.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is one of the leading new music events in Europe, which gives a platform to cutting-edge and experimental compositions and performances. Held annually each November, this hugely popular ten day event hosts around seventy concerts and sees more than four hundred musicians descending on the market town of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire in the north of England.

However due to the global pandemic, HCMF鈥檚 2020 season had to be a virtual affair and Nikki Bedi talks to some of the artists and composers who took part.

Music and Sound Artist Auclair tells us about how her mother鈥檚 escape from Rwanda has inspired her piece Munganyinka is a Transformer.

Clarinettist Heather Roche on the challenges of playing duets when your musical partner is stuck in another country

Percussionist Lamine Sonko explains the rhythms of hyenas and why they鈥檙e important symbols of Senegalese culture.

Pianist Noriko Kawai on how Greek mythology inspired her interpretation of the piece Echo the Angelus during lockdown.

GBSR Duo, George Barton and Siwan Rhys, explain making music out of a children鈥檚 game

And Artistic Director Graham McKenzie tells us what it鈥檚 like putting on a major international series of concerts in the middle of a pandemic

Produced for the 91热爆 World Service by Andrea Kidd and Nancy Bennie

(Photo: Auclair. Credit: Sophia Schorr-Kon)

Available now

53 minutes

Last on

Tue 6 Apr 2021 23:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Sat 3 Apr 2021 19:06GMT
  • Sun 4 Apr 2021 14:06GMT
  • Tue 6 Apr 2021 09:06GMT
  • Tue 6 Apr 2021 23:06GMT