hcmf// shorts returns for 2026, showcasing new works and world-class, bite-sized performances which often turn out to be festival highlights. Celebrating renowned figures in experimental music alongside innovative early-career artists, this year’s programme features no fewer than 9 UK premieres and 3 world premieres across 14 performances.
Every year, these free-to-attend concerts, spread across venues as varied as the performances themselves, comprise a full day at the festival. The 2026 edition of this day-long free programme takes place on Monday 23 November.
Full concert details will be available in due course – until then, explore a summary of the day’s proceedings below:
12pm | Andy Ingamells
Andy Ingamells – a musician who develops unusual methods of composition that blur the line between composer and performer – has filled taxis with recorder players reading traffic lights as notation, played gold-painted pianos overflowing with buckets of red wallpaper paste, invented the game of violin cricket, and been tickled by improvisers playing his ticklish body as a musical instrument. What will he do at hcmf// 2026? Come along to find out.
12.40pm | Heather Roche
“Queen of Clarinet Multiphonics” (Sara Mohr-Pietsch, BBC Radio 3) Heather Roche performs the world premiere of a new work by Kari Watson; a composer, performer, and intermedia artist whose work explores the intersections of contemporary concert music, electroacoustic composition, live performance, and interactive installation.
1.30pm | Saxtronauts: Ave Maris Stella
The first of two performances by Finnish saxophone quartet Saxtronauts, returning to Huddersfield following a stunning debut at hcmf// 2025. Here, they give the UK premiere of what is arguably Composer in Residence Lauri Supponen’s ‘signature’ piece, Ave Maris Stella – a concert installation in three parts, realised through live-electronics and experimental instrument building.
2.30pm | Julija Bagdonavičiūtė: Anamorphosis
Pianist Julija Bagdonavičiūtė presents a solo programme reflecting the artistic directions that have shaped her work in recent years, balancing delicate and sonically fragile soundscapes with works that extend into electronics, objects, and other media. Featuring works by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Jonas Jurkūnas, Andrius Šiurys and Liisa Hõbepappel.
3.20pm | Natural Abstraction II
A 15-minute fixed audio-visual work in stereo that explores colour, light and movement at a microscopic scale, influenced in part by composer Anderinna Gooch’s experience of a James Turrell installation in Copenhagen.
4pm | XN: Shabnam Parvaresh
Running from 2025 to 2027, XN (X perimental N counters) brings together two of Europe’s leading experimental music festivals – hcmf// and Moers Festival – in a six-part international exchange. hcmf// 2026 marks part four, with a programme of innovative solo, duo, trio and quintet performances curated by Moers’ Artistic Director. First up as XN meets hcmf// shorts is Shabnam Parvaresh, a clarinettist, visual artist and curator from Tehran (Iran). Currently the artistic director of the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück, her musical work follows an exploratory approach that blends elements of Persian music with electronic sounds, improvisation, and jazz.
5pm | HIVE Choir
Under the direction of John D’Arcy, Belfast-based vocal ensemble HIVE create music from found text and use verbal notation and audio technologies, often inviting participation from non-expert performers and audience members. Here they perform a selection of their collaboratively composed works responding to the natural environment in Ireland – biodiversity, birdsong, bogs, lakes, rivers and projected flooding.
6pm | XN: Zimmermann / Lienhard
This year’s XN programme continues with Zimmermann / Lienhard, an experimental duo formed in 2018 by accordionist Tizia Zimmermann and electronic noise musician Pablo Ulises Lienhard. Playing music that has found a home in the deepest bass and draws its power from resonant drones, the sounds of their instruments intertwine so closely that the boundaries between acoustic and electronic sounds seem to dissolve, merging into an energetic whole.
7pm | Rhodri Davies + Aine O’Dwyer
Rhodri Davies (harp) and Aine O’Dwyer (church organ) bring a weight of experience and radicality to their respective instruments, forming deep and critical investigations into their potential in and around improvisation, folk music, sound art and experimental composition. Appearing as a duo in Huddersfield for the first time, they perform a 30-minute set as part of this year’s hcmf// shorts.
8pm | XN: RaumZeitPiraten
Drawing this year’s XN programme to a close is RaumZeitPiraten, a space-and-time-bending trio at the intersection of art and technology. Playful experimenters and connectors of sound, image and object, they wander the globe with multidimensional environments, immersive light art, optoacoustic instruments, rhizomatic light sculptures and audiovisual performances.
9pm | CONDENSED MUSIC
Featuring 60-80 works (each between 1 and 45 seconds long) from around 60 composers, Orest Smovzh’s CONDENSED MUSIC is a patchwork of solo violin micropieces and a crossover between contemporary music and punk. Played in one go – with a different order and altered content every time – it is by turns noisy, high-voltage, contemplative, inebriated.
9.40pm | Across the North Sea: Barbara Drazkov
Across the North Sea – our collaboration with Sacrum Profanum festival building on the legacy of experimental music studios in the UK and Poland – returns with a solo performance from Barbara Drazkov. A pianist, composer and performer known for her innovative use of prepared pianos, her work blends classical techniques with experimental sounds, establishing her as a prominent figure in the alternative music scene.
10.50pm | Saxtronauts: Exobiology
Saxtronauts perform the UK premiere of Finnish composer Tytti Arola’s Exobiology, named for the interdisciplinary field of science researching evolution and the future of life in the universe. A tribute is paid to women who have travelled to space, saxophone yoga is practised, and strange creatures are encountered…
11.30pm | SYKLIT
A new trio blending techno influences with reimagined material from their previous works for choir and percussion, featuring Composer in Residence Lauri Supponen performing alongside percussionist Kalle Hakosalo and video artist Irene Suosalo.
Image: Created by Anderinna Gooch