May 1999   Ensemble Aleph Bath International Music Festival is 50... and exploring contemporary music from across the channel Bath’s International Music Festival was created to lift people's eyes from post-World War II gloom to visions of a happier future, and this year it reaches the 50th edition - an eclectic feast over 17 days with 75 concerts, 25% larger than in 1998. The Festival's final weekend will include the much younger Contemporary Music Weekend. Launched back in 1997, the thinking behind the Weekend was simple. We already had a European Contemporary Jazz Weekend and plans for a World Music Weekend. We could have limited ourselves to the familiar approach and sandwiched contemporary work in classical programmes. But the truth is that with some composers this works while with others, particularly more radical composers, their music feels out of context. I wanted to celebrate the best and most exciting of this music, putting it centre stage. And so, since 1997 and with success greater than we dreamt of, the Contemporary Music Weekend has established itself as a regular feature, devoted to work by living composers and achieving cohesion through a principal theme each year - in 1997 the music of Iannis Xenakis; in 1998 the contemporary vitality of the String Quartet. In early June 1999, 'Le Weekend' celebrates French contemporary music since Boulez. Boulez will be 74 this year and in Britain we are largely ignorant of younger French composers music. Getting to know France's increasingly diverse musical culture has been a fascinating journey. I found many strands and in programming the Weekend I have tried to reflect all of them. There is Boulez' legacy of course - the refined sensitivity to sound combined with a highly intellectual aesthetic. But there is much else. Music theatre often shot through with eccentricity - by Georges Aperghis, for example. The electroacoustic tradition of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and 'musique concrète'. The influence of Iannis Xenakis. New minimalist directions. The more traditional but nevertheless fresh musical language of such composers as the young Guadaloupean Thierry Pécou. And the free-spirited, dramatic and rugged style of such composers as Yan Maresz and Bernard Cavanna. Bath in June offers a chance to explore this world through 12 concerts plus special projects with spnm*, COMA, the musical machines of Claudine Brahem as well as GRM bringing their Acousmonium, a 60-strong orchestra of loudspeakers, to the UK for the first time. Artists include the familiar (the London Sinfonietta, and the youthful Percussions de Strasbourg back in Britain at last) and rare UK visitors - Ensemble Aleph, pianist Florent Boffard, percussionist Jean-Pierre Drouet and the vocal ensemble, Les Jeunes Solistes. Join us! *Six cabaret songs selected from the recent spnm call for works will be performed by Ensemble Aleph on Friday 4 June The monthly listings magazine new notes is essential reading for composers, performers, and everyone interested in what's new in new music. In its printed version new notes reaches over 5,000 contemporary music enthusiasts in the UK and around the world. If you promote new music events you should advertise them in new notes. Single concert listings are just £60+VAT. The magazine also features ads for festivals, composer competitions, recordings and more. new notes also features monthly articles on issues at the forefront of new music special offers on CDs, tickets, scores and books for spnm members information about forthcoming spnm events a free classified section for spnm members' non-trade ads. For full details on advertising or inserting leaflets in new notes please contact the Editor Rachel Duncombe: e-mail telephone fax

Event listings for this month   Previous articles: April 1999 Who is Georges Aperghis? March 1999 On frost, birth and death February 1999 Keeping busy... January 1999 Now that's what I call contemporary! December 1998 Forty years of madness? November 1998 To plug in or not to plug in? October 1998 No, honestly it is a cello September 1998 Composing for film July/August 1998 New music on old instruments June 1998 Blue sheep of record companies May 1998 spnm looks to the future April 1998 New Music 98 in Manchester