Sydney's ISCM World New Music Days Festival

Living Music is the theme for the 2010 ISCM World New Music Days Festival in Sydney. Living Composers, Living Performers and Living Music.

Sydney's hosting of the ISCM World New Music Days Festival from 30 April to 9 May 2010 heralds the first time in the 88-year history of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) that the prestigious event will be held in the Southern Hemisphere. It will also be the largest festival of contemporary music ever held in Australia.

In putting together the programme for this festival, more than 700 works from 52 countries were assessed, with over 82 works being selected. These reflect a broad spectrum of innovative musical practice, covering traditional chamber groups and choirs to cutting edge multimedia and sound installations. New Zealand composers and performers will be well represented in the Festival. Click here for a collection of links to the ISCM events that include New Zealand music.

NZTrio will be giving a concert of works, most of which were commissioned by them, from New Zealanders Chris Cree Brown, Chris Gendall, Jack Body, Wayan Yudane and John Psathas as well as ex-pat New Zealander Judy Bailey. The concert will also feature The Year Without a Summer by Melbourne's Stuart Greenbaum, one of the results of their collaboration begun in 2009 through the Trans-Tasman Composer Exchange, a project facilitated in alternating years by SOUNZ and by the Australian Music Centre with support from their respective funding bodies.

Annea Lockwood will return to Australasia for the festival where she will be in residence supervising the installation of selected Piano Transplants, including Piano Burning - still strongly evocative more than 40 years after its first performance. She will also be performing with longtime collaborator Thomas Buckner (baritone) in a performance of three of her works under the title The Pulse of Power Part 2 – Music and Politics. Annea has been resident in USA for many years and was recipient of the prestigious Henry Cowell Award there in 2007. [Annea and Thomas will follow their ISCM performance with a visit to New Zealand where they will perform and Annea will give composer workshops in Auckland and Wellington.]

Annea's crecent work with video artist Paul Ryan, Bow Falls, will be on display at the Campbelltown Arts Centre during the entire ISCM World New Music Days, as too will be Gilded Blessing, the fascinating 'golden cello' audiovisual installation between gilder Sarah Guppy and composer Eve de Castro-Robinson.

In addition, The Song Company include Gareth Farr's Les Murray Song Cycle (the result of the first Trans-Tasman Exchange in 2003) in their concert, MATCH Percussion (Daryl Pratt and Alison Eddington) with saxophonist Michael Duke include Miriama Young's Snapdragon in their concert called Well Matched, Ensemble Offspring include part/s by Alexandra Hay and Not Broken Bruised Reed by Bruce Crossman in their The World in Sydney concert programme. Chronolgy Arts also include a work by Alexandra Hay in their Arise programme.

Notable in the 2010 ISCM World New Music Days is the inclusion of a special category of radiophonic works – 13 works that have been speci!cally written for radio broadcast. Composers in this category include Jack Body (whose award-winning Intimate history no. 2: sssteve will be broadcast on Saturday 1 May), along with others from are from Australia, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, Turkey and Portugal. The event's media partner, ABC Classic FM, will be presenting these and other works recorded during the festival throughout Australia, as well as streamed via the web.

Click here for a collection of links to the ISCM events that include New Zealand music and click here for information about the complete programme for the 2010 ISCM World New Music Days Festival in Sydney.