Author Archives: Chris

June Unfolding

June Unfolding was written for a con­cert marking the 750th Anniversary of Macclesfield’s Royal Charter given by King Edward Musical Society in June 2011. Faced with the length of time in ques­tion  —  an un­ima­gin­able dur­a­tion, the change during which is dif­fi­cult to fathom  —  it was a chal­lenge to re­spond in a mean­ingful way. As time passes we […]

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…going back to the skies @ Kings Place

Good friends Trio Atem make their London début on 4 April with a con­cert as part of the in­nov­ative ‘Out Hear’ series at Kings Place. Gavin Osborn (flute), Nina Whiteman (voice) and Alice Purton (cello) present a pro­gramme of new music by com­posers based in the North West of England along­side the work that first […]

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A Structure of Physicalities

Ahead of Trio Atem’s per­form­ance at Kings Place next week, I thought I would share this essay on the work which brought them to­gether: Helmut Lachenmann’s temA. It is a work that I ima­gine will have been a ref­er­ence point or at least in the backs of com­posers’ minds as they wrote for the wonderful […]

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Where are the women in your local music scene?

As it’s International Women’s Day, I wondered how well that most re­ac­tionary of mu­sical beasts, the or­chestra, would stand up to tests of gender equality. I wondered how many fe­male com­posers were being per­formed by Manchester’s three or­ches­tras this season, and then ex­panded my re­search into con­ductors, so­loists and rank and file player num­bers. Perhaps […]

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Backwards through a telescope

Brian Ferneyhough at the RNCM In the last week and a half it has been in­ter­esting to ob­serve from a dis­tance the build-up and fall-out from the Ferneyhough day in London. Thankfully, the Radio 3 broad­cast meant I could hear the music as well as the sur­rounding re­ac­tion. Radio 4 ran an item on the Total […]

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  • Microbiography

    Chris Swithinbank is a British-Dutch com­poser who works with both acoustic in­stru­ments and elec­tronic sounds. He is cur­rently a stu­dent at Harvard University with Chaya Czernowin.
    Full Biography »

  • Hear