IRCAM: UK Visit ??

[Quarky]

Spending a day in Paris, and making a short visit to IRCAM near the Pompidou Centre, I noted that UK Composers have a degree of prominence there - George Benjamin, and there is a work by Jonathon Harvey to be performed in the Spring.

Which made we wonder why there is nothing approaching IRCAM in the UK. OK there are occasional concerts at the South Bank, Kings Place and Wigmore, but these are easy to miss in the listings. Hasn't the South Bank a little cubby hole it could set aside exclusively for new music? Or the Music Colleges?

More than that I noted IRCAM does make tours - see :http://www.ircam.fr/tournees.html?L=1

They seem to go far afield, but UK is not on the list. May be a Proms concert might break the ice?

[Bryn]

Yes, it's a B.E.A.S.T. of a lack.

[Dave2002]

Yes, it's a B.E.A.S.T. of a lack.

This one = http://www.beast.bham.ac.uk/ ?

[Bryn]

That's the one. A sort of IRCAM writ small.

[Sydney Grew]

Jonathan surely. Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Bible study has been so neglected in England of late.

[Bryn]

Jonathan surely. Bible study has been so neglected in England of late.

If Biblical, surely you mean:

יְהוֹנָתָן/יוֹנָתָן

do you not?

[Quarky]

Yes, it's a B.E.A.S.T. of a lack.

The comments made show I need to be a bit more focussed on this.

IRCAM has a research centre, and I can see this is emulated up in Birmingham.

There is of course the BCMG, which I am somewhat familiar with, having seen them at various concerts in London directed by Oliver Knussen, and with that excellent soprano, whose name I can't recall for the moment. They appear to have a base in Brummie land:

http://www.bcmg.org.uk/default.php?id=327

Trouble is I am definitely a not-north of Watford man (Watford by the way has an excellent concert hall).

The source of my original complaint is that there is not in London one single venue which I can rely on to get a new music "fix". The concerts by BCMG and others take place at various venues, and easily get lost in the listings.

Considering London prides itself as being a musical capital, this seems to me a glaring error of omission.

[MrGongGong]

Spending a day in Paris, and making a short visit to IRCAM near the Pompidou Centre, I noted that UK Composers have a degree of prominence there - George Benjamin, and there is a work by Jonathon Harvey to be performed in the Spring.

Which made we wonder why there is nothing approaching IRCAM in the UK. OK there are occasional concerts at the South Bank, Kings Place and Wigmore, but these are easy to miss in the listings. Hasn't the South Bank a little cubby hole it could set aside exclusively for new music? Or the Music Colleges?

More than that I noted IRCAM does make tours - see :http://www.ircam.fr/tournees.html?L=1

They seem to go far afield, but UK is not on the list. May be a Proms concert might break the ice?

If you knew the history of the "National Studio" then you would chuckle also
The Acousmonium and folk from IRCAM have made several visits to the UK
there are plenty of other groups (as well as Jonty and BEAST) doing electroacoustic and acousmatic music in the UK (De Montfort University has a great series as does Huddersfield etc etc)
HCMF also programmes this music and the ICMC is in Huddersfield this year
composers from the UK are at the forefront of electronic and electroacoustic music yet seldom does this get media attention or radio 3 broadcast......

[MrGongGong]

You might like this

http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/soundings/