hcmf// shorts day has become a hugely popular and eagerly anticipated part of the festival, and this year it’s back in full flight! On Monday 21 November we’re packing 15 free-to-attend events into 12 hours at multiple venues, large and small, across Huddersfield. And we can’t wait!
We had a record-breaking number of responses to our hcmf// shorts open call and the panel had their work cut out to whittle it down to five successful applications. Having recently announced the artists that we’ll be welcoming to hcmf// in November, we can now share a bit more about them and the new works that they’ll be presenting.
b-l duo
b-l duo comprises keyboard players Bertram Wee and Lynette Yeo and they’ll be presenting the World Premiere of Alex Paxton’s Sometimes Voices alongside Wee’s own work vessel III – also a World Premiere.
On a mission to play ‘the creepiest, craziest keyboard music we can get our hands on’, b-l duo pushes genre boundaries and polite taste through its diverse and provocative repertoire. In premiering a new version of Alex Paxton’s Sometimes Voices, the multiple keyboards deliver an irreverent, psychedelic romp that really leans into the digital hyperreality of Paxton’s freewheeling style.
Imagining the human form as an acoustic space – a ‘speaker cabinet in flesh’ – Bertram Wee’s vessel series aims to recall the transgressive vocal noise work of Japanese acts such as The Gerogerigegege and the Masonna, offering an avant-garde approach to talkboxing.
Ben Smith + Patricia Auchterlonie
Pianist Ben Smith and soprano Patricia Auchterlonie will be presenting the World Premiere of Evan Johnson’s new pieces, Medée fu and Del maravigliarsi.
Composer and pianist Ben Smith has long been fascinated with the experimental complexity of Evan Johnson’s music. This year, alongside the experimental, classically-trained soprano Patricia Auchterlonie, Smith will perform three of Johnson’s new pieces for soprano and piano. The central piece, Del maravigliarsi (of astonishment), is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s musings about the human eye, with both performers engaging in private, internal rituals, while two transcriptions of anonymous medieval ballad Medée fu en amer veritable explore fading love – combining to create a programme that seeks to find beauty in things that are imperceptibly lost.
Helen Anahita Wilson
Helen Anahita Wilson, playing electronics and synths, will perform the World Premiere of her new work KRANKENHAUSFUNK and the extrinsic death receptor pathway.
A self-reflexive interpretation of her own experience of cancer treatment during the pandemic, Helen Anahita Wilson’s KRANKENHAUSFUNK and the extrinsic death receptor pathway is a work of reparative sonic life writing that translates the experience of illness and treatment into music. Incorporating samples from the Gayatri Mantra by Jagjit Singh and Aaj Jane Ki Zid Ni Karo by Farida Khanum (both musical gifts sent to Wilson in hospital), field recordings from the chemotherapy ward and electrical signals from the Yew tree (from which her chemotherapy drug was derived), Wilson’s work ultimately offers a ground-breaking way of sharing illness and connecting with, in Susan Sontag’s words, ‘the kingdom of the sick’.
Hannan Jones & Shamica Ruddock
Beginning in a shared basement studio in Kent, artists and dreamers Hannan Jones and Shamica Ruddock discovered their curiosity and passion for speculating through experimental sound and film. Their project Re-Imagining In-Conversation seeks to re-imagine the world through improvisation – rather than creating a single narrative or one-sided dialogue, their improvisation creates a conversation through multiple paths that open up new possibilities. This performance responds to the themes in Eduoard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation, contemplating approaches, elements, paths, theories, and poetics.
Yoko Konishi
Experimental musician Yoko Konishi will perform the World Premiere of her own composition, Fluctuating Beings II, creating new sounds from a cajon box, transducer and a MIDI glove.
Believing that music is an instrument of sensation, Japanese composer, researcher and soprano Yoko Konishi seeks to find and create connections between objects, sensation and perception. Using a small speaker and transducer on a cajon box, Konishi will control the sounds and create feedback through a MIDI glove, enabling a connection between the small, sensitive finger movements and the dangerously delicate feedback. The resulting piece, Fluctuating Beings II, is inspired by her interest in feedback sounds and the pure, mysterious vibes they create – like a small beam of intense light.
All of these works will be presented as part of hcmf// shorts on Monday 21 November – our full-on day of free music during hcmf// 2022. In addition to appearing as part of the festival programme, the successful hcmf// shorts open call artists are provided with mentoring and other support from the festival team as part of our ground-breaking Fielding Talent programme.