Between 1976 and 1986 the Dutch group Hoketus were central to the creation of the sound and aesthetic of the Hague school. Through their rehearsal process they challenged and redefined the role of the composers who wrote for them in relation to the ensemble, and in doing so they challenged conventional notions of composer privilege and power. While not going as far as free improvisation groups in erasing the boundaries between composers and performers, they created a situation in which traditional hierarchies were overturned. Without ever claiming co-ownership of the resulting works, the group actively participated in the creative process and so could claim a higher degree of ownership and responsibility for the music they played than is usually the case.

Henri Dutilleux was a unique musical figure of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His music is defined by his great sense of lyricism and meticulous control, which, over his life as a composer, had undergone much thought and a gradual sense of change. He inevitably acquired a wide mix of contemporary influences, which added to his poetic vision. Dutilleux's music appears to be a sophisticated understatement, yet at the same time there is an expressive depth and mystery that sets his music apart from any one musical movement or group of his time.

Little has been said about Berio's work Formazioni (1987), and even less about Ekphrasis (1996), both large-scale orchestral compositions with non-traditional instrumental groupings. In his book on Berio, David Osmond-Smith gives a brief description of Formazioni, but one would be hard pressed to find any further published material about the piece, save for liner notes in the two available recordings (written by Roger Marsh and Ferdinand Schmatz respectively, and those from the latter coming in the form of abstract poetry). Ekphrasis has received one studio recording, and no published analysis. The two works were completed towards the end of the composer's life, and they demonstrate a refinement of his craft; a much closer look is therefore in order.

How important is it for ensembles and orchestras to engage in performances outside of the typical concert environment? With a seemingly endless number of works commissioned and premiered every year, one could continue to experience new music without ever straying from the concert halls. Although cross-artistic endeavours between music and arts institutions are creating new and exciting performance environments, more often than not collaborative endeavours fail in their ability to communicate the relationship between mediums clearly and faithfully. Uniting different art forms into a single artistic experience is often seized as an opportunity to take music out of the concert hall and into more unorthodox performance spaces: do we need to see reputable music ensembles engage in projects with other art forms, or should organisations be created with this type of practice at the heart of their work?

Brett Dean's interests in writing his new cantata The Last Days of Socrates were both political and sonic. Coming across an old edition of philosophical dialogues by Plato with this title, the composer was taken particularly by The Apology in which Socrates's trial on a charge of ‘being a menace to society’ is dramatically recounted. Following his condemnation to death by the 501-person jury, the last dialogue in the collection Phaedo revisits Socrates in prison awaiting execution. Dean certainly has form both as a politically motivated composer – his Pastoral Symphony (2000) was a protest against the soullessness of modern living – and one with an interest in blending ancient and modern. One of his breakthrough pieces, Carlo (1997), pits sampled Gesualdo against strings to wonderful effect.

Unsuk Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland is that rare thing: a wholly satisfying artistic event, its multiplicity of meanings resonating in the mind long after the ceaselessly inventive music itself comes to a stop. Most adaptations of such wide-ranging texts focus on one or two aspects of the original, and Chin and her librettist, the playwright David Henry Hwang, sacrifice much of Carroll's playfulness to darken and deepen his message. Their Wonderland retains his virtuosic whimsy, of necessity, but ultimately becomes a fierce, unforgiving, savagely dysfunctional place, as if sieved through Beckett's absurdist nihilism; the humour tiptoes along the edge of an abyss, glancing down nervously.

At a seminar on Monday morning, when everything was over at Borealis, Christian Wolff said (I'm paraphrasing), ‘it was easier in the '50s. If you did anything besides follow Stravinsky or Schoenberg, you were beyond the pale. Composers starting now, I don't know what you should do. Everything has been done’.