"Quatuor Bozzini took on the theatrical challenges of string quartets by Mauricio Kagel and Jennifer Walshe, which included playing their instruments with knitting needles and cellist Isabelle Bozzini pointing a gun at violinist Clemens Merkel."

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is over for 2010, and whilst the festival team busy themselves with preparing an even more spectacular programme for 2011, we’re looking back on some of the highlights from this year’s instalment of the award-winning celebration of new and experimental music. For a start, Brian Slater photographed many of the events at hcmf// 2010 and you can enjoy his images here on Facebook.

The festival began in typically unpredictable style on Friday 19 November with Alvin Curran’s Ear Training, in which musicians descended upon Huddersfield Station for a site-specific performance on instruments ranging from saxophone and violin to basketball and ram’s horn. Read how the Huddersfield Examiner covered the event here. Curran and the Edges Ensemble will return to the station for a repeat performance at 12pm on Saturday 8 January.

The same day, Enno Poppe conducted ensemble mosaik and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart in the first UK performance of his work Interzone. The Telegraph described the event as “powerfully affecting” and a “hugely impressive” technical feat; you can see photos from the event in Bates Mill here. Later, Quatuor Bozzini took on the theatrical challenges of string quartets by Mauricio Kagel and Jennifer Walshe, which included playing their instruments with knitting needles and cellist Isabelle Bozzini pointing a gun at violinist Clemens Merkel.

Other highlights of the opening weekend included ensemble recherche giving the UK premieres of Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee and Murmurs by Rebecca Saunders, hcmf//’s Composer in Residence, two pieces exploring quiet, contemplative and fragmented soundworlds. Read what the Guardian thought of the concert here.

The first Monday of hcmf// is now established as a day for rising talents, innovative experiments and discovering new music with the help of free events. After an afternoon devoted to a variety of bite-sized performances from the hcmf// shorts programme, Alvin Curran oversaw another musical surprise, this time with Big Squeeze, Long Stretch, in which massed accordionists lined the balconies of the historic Byram Arcade. Watch a short video clip of the performance here. In the evening, Bates Mill played host to a collaboration between improvising duo Oceans of Silver and Blood, violin and harp trio The New String Theory and composer Claudia Molitor, which included the sight of the musicians all playing Rhodri Davies’ harp by pulling long threads attached to it. You can view photos of the concert and other hcmf// events in Bates Mill here.

John Cage’s pioneering work with chance and indeterminacy was a theme running throughout hcmf// 2010. A constantly changing display of Cage’s visual art in the Every Day is a Good Day exhibition at Huddersfield Art Gallery provided the backdrop for several events, including Philip Thomas’s 12-hour performance of the composer’s Electronic Music for Piano, during which he only took a 15-minute break. Double bassist Joëlle Léandre performed her own personal tribute at Lawrence Batley Theatre, which included riding a bicycle across the stage, dancer Dominique Boivin’s bendy-limbed movements and a performance of Cage’s Ryoanji with precise, disciplined accompaniment from the University of Huddersfield’s Edges Ensemble. The ensemble and Alvin Curran also hopped on board the Cage Train from Huddersfield to Stalybridge for a performance inspired by Cage’s 1978 happening. Find out what happened by watching this video:

The festival also featured a strong representation from the Norwegian new music scene. On Thursday 25 November, a concert presented by NOTAM, the Norwegian centre for technology in music and art, commemorated the achievements of the late composer Arne Nordheim, with a selection of his groundbreaking electronic works and pieces featuring soloists Eldbjørg Hemsing (violin) and Einar Steen-Nøkleberg (piano). Illness prevented the composer Ole-Henrik Moe from taking the stage with the Arditti Quartet for his works Vent, Litt and Lenger on Saturday 27 November, but former Arditti violinist Graeme Jennings heroically stepped in at a day’s notice and rose to the challenge of Moe’s technically arduous but austerely beautiful work. London Sinfonietta rounded off the Norwegian strand with a concert in Bates Mill that included Rolf Wallin’s Curiosity Cabinet.

Families and young people got involved with the festival thanks to events such as the Family Morning on Sunday 28 November, where kids could help the Pound Shop Boys prepare music for their radio show on K-Oss.FM: hear the results on the duo’s YouTube channel here. Meanwhile, Claudia Molitor and hcmf// teamed up with local web broadcaster Two Valleys Radio for Playback, a workshop producing an interactive composition which can be heard here.

The festival’s final weekend was as successful as its first, with concertgoers braving freezing weather to experience a unique performance of Rebecca Saunders’ Chroma. Huddersfield Town Hall was transformed into an unearthly and dreamlike space, with musikFabrik’s musicians and more than 100 music boxes arranged around the hall’s floor, stage, balconies and side rooms – and even in the lift – whilst the audience wandered around freely during the two consecutive performances of the 45-minute work.

After all that, we hope you’re looking forward to the 2011 festival as much as we are. Keep up to date with all the hcmf// news on this site, or by becoming a fan of the festival on Facebook or following us on Twitter.

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