Estonian focus at hcmf//
Welcome to the Estonian programme at hcmf// 2026, the second year of our partnership with the festival.
Estonians are not famous for small talk. We tend to save our words for things that matter, and our musicians seem to have followed suit: what they have to say is rarely what you’d expect, brave and very much their own. This year we’ve brought a handful of them to Huddersfield, and we’d rather they spoke for themselves.
Kris Kuldkepp opens our week at the Blending Shed, with double bass and electronics. The Canadian Quatuor Bozzini will give the UK premiere of Gregor Kulla‘s whatevergirl. Julija Bagdonavičiūtė premieres a new piano work by Liisa Hõbepappel. Katariin Raska and Villem Jahu bring together Estonian bagpipes and electronics in a surprising synergy. Ensemble for New Music Tallinn close the programme with five UK premieres, among them Liisa Hirsch‘s Liiv’s “Code”.
Between concerts, look out for Radio Tallinn 1965, Radio of a Past That Never Came to Pass – an in-between zone, bridging one time to the other. A point of concentration where what was not, almost is, and what is not yet has almost begun to form.
Our musicians will sit down with the artists they share a stage with, from Lithuania, Canada, Ireland and beyond, to talk – about music and whatever else comes up. No press officers, no script, just musicians listening to one another.
A big thank you to Graham McKenzie and the whole hcmf// crew, and to the Estonian Ministry of Culture and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia for making it all possible.
Do join us to experience this second year of Estonian focus in Huddersfield. We are told the Yorkshire weather will make us feel right at home.
Maria Hansar & Taavi Kerikmäe
Estonian Center of Contemporary Music
Finnish focus at hcmf//
We are delighted to continue our collaboration with hcmf// for the third consecutive year. As one of Europe’s leading festivals for contemporary music, hcmf// provides an exceptional platform for Finnish composers and their music to be heard, to reach new audiences, and to contribute to the international dialogue that shapes and develops this art form.
This year, we are especially pleased that the festival’s Composer in Residence is Lauri Supponen from Finland. The festival will feature several of his works, including the world premiere of east, commissioned by the festival and composed for Eva Zöllner (accordion) and Heather Roche (clarinet).
Among other highlights is also the UK premiere of Myself/Myself/Myself – a contemporary opera for singer, actress and electronics by Heinz-Juhani Hofmann. The work depicts a young woman’s psychological struggle, shaped by social media’s beauty ideals and the pursuit of perfection. The main character Didi, sung and played by Annika Fuhrmann, leaves a lasting impression.
The programme will also feature works by Maija Hynninen, Tytti Arola, and Jarkko Hartikainen – all composers who are currently attracting international attention. Their works are performed by both Finnish and international top-tier musicians. Saxophone quartet Saxtronauts makes a return visit to Huddersfield and violinist Orest Smovzh’s Condensed Music provides us with a patchwork of micropieces and a crossover between contemporary music and punk.
On behalf of Music Finland, I would like to thank Graham McKenzie and his entire team for the fruitful collaboration. Warm thanks also to all the composers and musicians for the remarkable musical moments we have the pleasure to experience. Our sincere appreciation as well to our partners this year – The Society of Finnish Composers and the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland. And finally, on behalf of the entire Finnish team at hcmf// 2026: welcome to the concerts!
Heli Lampi
Programme Director, Music Finland
Irish focus at hcmf//
What started as a three-year partnership in 2022 between Culture Ireland and hcmf// has proven to be so successful that it has become a seven-year partnership! This really underscores both the positive and enthusiastic collaboration of hcmf// and the strength of the festival as a key platform for the artists working in this genre. We have seen over the past four years so many unexpected positive outcomes from this partnership with hcmf// – with co-commissions and collaborations and projects arising from Irish artists performing at the festival – that as a result we have committed to partnering for another three years from 2028.
So many Irish artists have been supported to appear in Huddersfield over the last four years with composers, ensembles and artists including Anne Cleare, Úna Monaghan, Jennifer Walsh, Nick Roth, Darragh Morgan, Linda Buckley, Crash Ensemble and more to come in the next three years.
The extension of this partnership is a testament to the commitment of Graham McKenzie and his team to helping platform Irish artists. Culture Ireland’s mission is to help Irish artists grow their international audiences, and partnering with key festivals like hcmf// is essential to helping us deliver on this. We look forward to continuing to partner with hcmf// going forwards.
Enjoy the Festival.
Sharon Barry
Director, Culture Ireland
Lithuanian focus at hcmf//
In 2026 hcmf// continues its partnership with Lithuania, presenting a multifaceted portrait of the country’s contemporary music scene. This year’s programme brings together distinctive compositional voices, experimental ensembles, improvisers and interdisciplinary practices, revealing a musical culture where rigorous composition and open-ended experimentation
continually intersect.
The works of Egidija Medekšaitė, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Jonas Jurkūnas, Andrius Šiurys and Justina Repečkaitė demonstrate the breadth of contemporary Lithuanian composition. Their music explores timbre, texture, resonance, repetition and formal process – from finely controlled instrumental structures and gradually evolving sonic fields to more exploratory approaches to listening and musical form.
The performers extend this spectrum. Opus 58 and Artisans represent an experimental strand of Lithuanian ensemble practice, where composed material can meet improvisation and unconventional performance strategies. DEAR, DEAR, the duo of Agnė Matulevičiūtė and Marta Finkelštein, brings piano and analogue synthesisers into dialogue, exploring the
meeting point between acoustic and electronic sound.
Artūras Bumšteinas’s rainfair, performed by Lora Kmieliauskaitė and Julija Bagdonavičiūtė, takes a different route: a nineteenth-century weather diary becomes the starting point for a work shaped by repetition, recorded sound, vocal performance and chance procedures derived from meteorological data.
Together, these projects present Lithuanian music as a field of curiosity and exchange – where precision can coexist with spontaneity, and composition continually opens towards improvisation, technology and new forms of performance.
Radvilė Buivydienė,
Director, Music Information Centre Lithuania
Photo: Arturas Bumšteinas © Laura Vanceviciene // Kris Kuldkepp © Inês de Lima // Lauri Supponen © Tuomas Tenkanen // Ann Cleare © Amelie Kahn-Ackermann