As the 45th edition of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival gets underway, we’re keen to continue our ongoing efforts to push for a more inclusive festival so that as many people as possible have the opportunity to attend and experience the amazing programme of events lined up.

With the cost of living crisis pervading as we emerge from the shock of the pandemic, we return to a full-fledged 10-day festival format for the first time in three years with dozens of free events open for anyone to attend. Whether it’s the installations on show, our flagship hcmf// shorts day of free concerts, our expansive workshops, intriguing discussion events or our first year hosting the Oram Awards, there’s something for everyone throughout the each day.

So join us in exploring the cutting edge of sound in Huddersfield this November – and follow our guide on how to experience the festival for free below.

Friday 18 November

Claudia Molitor’s Listen To My World installation is a fantastic first stop for the festival, weaving together a tapestry of stories from six different people, all from different European towns. Here, visual and sonic material from across the continent will reflect the connections and divergences in the lives of all involved.

Saturday 19 November

The Future Reimagined is the first free event of the talks programme to get stuck into, featuring many of the Ukrainian artists and guests in attendance at this year’s festival. With a focus on the important role artists and cultural institutions play during times of conflict, this will go some way towards envisioning what a better and more secure future might look like. After lunchtime, you can hear from the hcmf// 2022 Composer in Residence, Lisa Streich, firsthand in her artist talk. Presented by BBC Radio 3’s Robert Worby, Meet the Composer: Lisa Streich will dig into the dynamic sounds and motorised mechanics of the Swedish artist’s work.

Sunday 20 November

Led by Leeds-based British-Asian vocalist Satnam Galsian, Relax-Sing for Wellbeing is a participatory workshop on relaxation through the art of Indian singing, exclusively for women and gender minority participants. Everyone is welcome to attend Meet the Composer: Raven Chacon, wherein the Diné, Navajo Nation-born 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Music winner discusses his myriad practices and activist intents with Robert Worby.

Monday 21 November

hcmf// shorts is a programme featuring curated events as well as performances by artists selected from an open call, providing a platform for emerging artists to present new works or innovative interpretations of existing contemporary repertoire at the UK’s leading new music festival.

All concerts in the hcmf// shorts programme take place in venues across Huddersfield on Monday 21 November 2022, and admission is free with no advance booking required. Here’s a run-through of all that’s in store:

Thorbjørn Reuter Christiansen performs his father’s work, 180 Hammer Blows Against the War Monkeys, a performance directed against any arms production, distribution and sales worldwide. hcmf// Artistic Director Graham McKenzie tips this as a hidden gem of the festival programme. It might get loud.

Ben Smith + Patricia Auchterlonie embark on a triple World Premiere of new works by Evan Johnson for soprano and piano, setting fragments of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook musings before elaborating on their intricacies.

Performed by Riot Ensemble, Maxim Shalygin’s drop after drop is a crucial work and must-see event this year, commissioned by Festivals for Compassion in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Helen Anahita Wilson describes her new work as a live reparative listening space, a re-imagining of hospital radio as live broadcast of patient experience, a self-reflexive interpretation of its composer’s experience of cancer treatment during the pandemic and much more. This World Premiere of electronics and synth is not to be missed.

Zubin Kanga combines piano, live video, live electronics and of course the technologically fantastic MiMU gloves to perform a World Premiere of Laura Bowler’s SHOW(ti)ME, revealing vulnerability through a magnification of the minutiae of piano practice.

Yoko Konishi / Polymer Hauntings / Megan Steinberg – a trio of events exploring extremities: Konishi’s Fluctuating Beings II navigates the the possibilities of feedback, Steinberg finds analogies for mental health in experimental turntablism, and Claudia Molitor’s Polymer Hauntings negotiates the scientific magic and environmental menace of plastic.

Freedom to Move sets out to bring disparate voices together from across the country, with Swedish-Ethiopian singer and composer Sofia Jernberg leading a creative residency with artists Alice Brookes, Ben Spatz, Kirsty Ferguson Lewis, Stephanie Lampera and Supriya Nagarajan ahead of and culminating in this performance.

Ann Rosén’s Liquid Air receives its World Premiere at hcmf// 2022, using graphite with live electronics to draw music into existence and gently shape it, moving between different states, time and space.

Sam Longbottom + Tanguy Pocquet craft together an ensemble of instruments and turntables into one automated system for this performance, creating delicate and intricate layers of repetition skewed by unpredictable variations in rhythm, timbre, colour and pitch.

Two of contemporary music’s most versatile voices, Heather Roche + Eva Zöllner, return to hcmf// with accordion, clarinets, and a host of premieres in tow.

Riot Ensemble / Raven Chacon + Marco Blaauw / b-l duo – another triple bill, this time featuring an improv noise set from esteemed trumpeter Marco Blaauw and 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Music winner Raven Chacon. Riot Ensemble and Aaron Holloway-Nahum’s consider what Jonah might have gotten up to passing time in a giant whale’s belly, and b-l duo bring irreverence, psychedelia and resonant transgressions through MIDI keyboards.

Vilnius-based improv-sound-sculpture band Sneeze Etiquette use cut dubplates, extended turntable techniques, fleetingly improvised percussion and a sound-art record collection in their adventures into sound.

Mark the end of your action-packed and fully free-to-attend day of hcmf// shorts with Jan Hendrickse: Black Noise, a contemplative undertaking which will see a bamboo flute played with a blowtorch – and sure enough burnt by it too.

Tuesday 22 November

Why Do Arts Collectives Matter? Our Tuesday afternoon panel discussion seeks to consider the benefits of co-operation and grassroots structures, resource-sharing and network-building, and the growing importance of artist collectives in the practice of contemporary music. A dream team of artists, researchers and collective figureheads lead this crucial conversation.

Wednesday 23 November

Following on from a heavy first long weekend of concerts, you might find that the midweek is a great moment to explore Ulysses Journey 2022 – six newly-commissioned music and film works that will be screening throughout the festival. Toasting the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, composers and filmmakers from Ireland were invited to reflect or respond to the literary masterwork for exhibition screening. They’ll be on show at DAI Hall for most of the festival.

Thursday 24 November

We’re delighted to host The Oram Awards for the first time, as part of a day dedicated to celebrating innovation in sound, music and related technologies. Named after Daphne Oram, one of the founding members of the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the awards aim to build on her legacy as a pioneering electronic composer. In partnership with The Radiophonic Institute and PRS Foundation, The Oram Awards is a platform to elevate the work and voices of women, trans and non-binary music creators. Most events on the Thursday are free:

Workshop: composing and improvising beyond the human – a workshop led by Maria Sappho exploring improvisational approaches and working with new musical instruments designed with human, machine/AI and fungal communication.

Panel Discussion: Oram Award Winners – Sophie Cooper, Co-Chair of the Daphne Oram Trust, leads a panel discussion with previous and present Oram Award winners, exploring their sound practices and their use of new technologies.

The Oram Awards 2022 – The 2022 Oram Awards will be presented by Elizabeth Alker (BBC Radio 3), and will be followed by performances from Rani Jambak as well as two of the winning UK artists. FRKTL’s audio-visual installation Azimuth will also be presented as part of the event, as will a performance by guest artist Lisa Stenberg, a Stockholm-based composer whose music oscillates in the realm of instrumental and electroacoustic.

David Granström – The Swedish composer, sound artist and former stalwart of the influential Sthlm Drome Society plays a solo performance to round off the day, demonstrating harmonic simplicity and spatio-textural complexity in tandem through both acoustic and synthetic sound.

Friday 25 November

Eight-channel sound installation Polar Force – Array opens on the second Friday of the festival, expressing the experience of a remote Antarctic research station through the convergence of sound, site and performance. The result is an immersive and affective experience of the spaces, protocols and conditions comprising the bracing polar environment, reflected in the field recordings heard within the installation dome. Find it in the Town Hall, Friday 25th onwards.

Saturday 26 November

Take an Archive Deep Dive into the British Music Collection, an extraordinary archive of scores and recordings of British art music from the 20th and 21st centuries. Kept at Heritage Quay, the archive service of the University of Huddersfield, the collection includes around 40,000 scores and the work of over 3,000 composers. Whether you are looking for repertoire or keen to learn more about the history of music, this tour offers a chance to get familiar with one of the most important music collections in the country. The morning session is exclusive to women and gender minority participants, with the afternoon session being open to all.

Sunday 27 November

Music at Play: FloooOOOooot! – okay, this one’s for the kids. Puppetry and flute playing come together in this immersive, non-verbal theatrical piece for the very young, where bespoke puppets and objects come to life through the actions of breathing and playing. The surrounding performance environment is primed for the audience’s inquisitive exploration, with carefully chosen materials and objects which make the breath, movement, and rhythms of the music visible and tactile. Babies and young toddlers can be booked onto the first session, while older toddlers and pre-schoolers have a choice between that and the second one.