News Francisco Guerrero Marín

Winners of the third Basel Composition Competition The third Basel Composition Competition came to a successful conclusion on Sunday as three winners were named. From an entry of over 350 compositions, the  jury selected 12 works (seven for symphony orchestra and five for chamber orchestra) and the resulting concerts were live streamed from 4 to 7 March, culminating in the final on Sunday 7 March. The winners were as follows: 1st place: Yiqing Zhu (1989) - DeepGrey Born in China, he started to play accordion, piano, bayan-accordion, violin, Chinese Pipa and classical guitar and began composing in 2008 at Shanghai Conservatory of Music, going on to study at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and at Stattliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart. He also works in the fields of Eastern traditional music, electronic music, jazz music, film music, world music as well as popular music. […]

Irvine Arditti 60th birthday Wigmore Hall 

Irvine Arditti celebrated his 60th birthday at the Wigmore Hall. Contemporary music would be nowhere without Arditti and his Quartet (past and present). For nearly 40 years, he's helped shape new music. He can play at such a technically challenging level that works can be created that might otherwise exist only in a composer's dreams. In turn, he inspires new work written specially for him. Indeed, the Arditti Quartet can be credited with creating modern string quartet repertoire. But he's modest. For his big birthday, he's chosen pieces he's played many times, and enjoys: just right for a celebration among friends. Perhaps that's his secret: he loves what he plays and communicates his enthusiasm to those who listen Arditti began with Brian Ferneyhough, with whom he has been so closely identified for decades. Not one of the astonishingly inventive Ferneyhough string quartets but one of the composer's early […]