There is a considerable imbalance between the presence of the music of Italian composer Pierluigi Billone in contemporary musical life and its presence in other media. The composer, now over 60 and based in Vienna since 2004, has appeared regularly on most of the major platforms for contemporary music, yet his music is only rarely reflected upon in print. This article attempts for the first time to illuminate some central aspects of his music, touching specifically on his understanding of Klang,1 on his structural and formal strategies and on the significance of the ritual and the corporeal in his oeuvre.

This article takes up Rebecca Saunders’ comments on the significance of timbre in her work to develop a timbre-centred analytical technique for two of her compositions, Ire (2012), for cello and ensemble, and Still (2011), for violin and orchestra. Two overarching principles are identified: the organisation of the pieces’ sounds into clearly differentiated categories, which can also overlap in different ways, and the use of a phrase-based logic in the pieces’ formal construction. Alongside the timbral construction, stable pitches acquire formal significance by virtue of their rarity and conspicuousness. I also elaborate on the ways in which perceptual ambiguity is fruitfully exploited in these works.

Anne Boyd (b. 1946) is one of Australia's most celebrated composers and educators. Her formal training began at the University of Sydney, where she worked with Peter Sculthorpe (1929–2014), who became a highly influential figure for her both musically and personally. Having completed her DPhil at the University of York in 1972 on a Commonwealth Scholarship, Boyd took up teaching posts in Sussex and Hong Kong, before returning to Sydney as Professor of Music, the first Australian and first woman to hold this position. Her music has been performed worldwide and draws on a synthesis of East-Asian and Western elements, with a clear focus on timbre and texture, invoking ideas of meditation, nature and ritual. This article presents a transcription of a virtual interview conducted with Boyd in February 2021 and uses the genre of the string quartet as a lens through which the composer elaborates and expands upon some of the key aspects of her musical approach and philosophy.

This article explores ways in which artistic directors and composers of new music ensembles have developed and redefined the role of the conductor to achieve specific goals and fulfil musical and artistic need. It will explore various manners in which they have instrumentalised the conductor – literally an embodied role – and opened new possibilities for musical expression. The analysis and examples provided will rely for the most part on material gathered during in-depth interviews conducted with artistic directors, composers, conductors and musicians who are professionally active in the new music field in Europe and beyond. The article endeavours to bring into greater detail artistic and socio-economic motivations for utilising conductors in new music ensembles.

This article explores an emergent vanguard of the ‘historically informed performance’ (HIP) movement in the twenty-first century, focusing on new music written for, and performed on, historical instruments. Drawing on musicological and journalistic writing, as well as first-hand interviews with artists working in the scene, discussion is centred around the work of three key practitioners: the lutenist Jozef van Wissem, gambist Liam Byrne and baroque violinist Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir. Finally, an attempt is made to situate the scene, both in relation to earlier revivalist practice and to broader cultural trends, drawing, in particular, on notions of ‘retromania’, post-internet and post-postmodernist practice.

A recent exchange of emails with the composer Christopher Fox touched on Morton Feldman. Christopher commented, ‘My “problem” with Feldman, and it is just mine and not a problem, is that he was not an innovator; but has there ever been a conservative composer who took more risks?’. This led me to consider the value of innovation, the need for risk and the nature of the risks we take.

Long-duration performances have been an interest of mine, since finding Morton Feldman's score for String Quartet No 2. Like, I believe, many readers of TEMPO, I enjoy the feeling of immersion in pieces such as Catherine Lamb's Prisma Interius IX, discussed in issue 289 of this publication, or James Week's Windfell, reviewed in issue 291. These works, as pleasurable as they are to listen to, also ask for particular endurance and concentration on the part of the performer.