Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival: 24–29 November 2015

Extract

Roughly midway through this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, a solo recital performance by the glissando flautist Erik Drescher somehow managed to capture simultaneously much of what makes today's hcmf// both interesting and infuriating. Drescher's choice of four pieces, obviously severely limited by the finite number of works scored for his unusual instrument, managed to forge divisions even through what seemed a somewhat partisan audience. Pairing the by-now somewhat familiar and perhaps predictable stylings of Salvatore Sciarrino's Il pomeriggio di un allarme al parcheggio with his fight to be heard over the wall of blasting electronic noise featured in Dror Feiler's Questions and Stones 3, and then again against the subtle simplicity of Alvin Lucier's Double Himalaya meant that most left in parts satisfied and in parts irritated.