The Louth Contemporary Music Society festival, based in Dundalk, only six miles from the border with Northern Ireland, is now an established presence on the contemporary music scene. Thanks to its founder, Eamonn Quinn, it attracts both local musicians and major international figures and also issues CDs. This year, the programme featured a strong Irish connection and a lot of music that is quiet, meditative and minimal. Music for guitar formed another theme, with new work by the Norwegian guitarist/composer Fredrik Rasten and the Cuban Leo Brouwer.

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.

‘There has always been a state of crisis’, we are told in Ziad Nawfal's wonderful introduction to the underground music scene in Beirut. That the corona restrictions comprise a rather different crisis to that of Lebanon's capital should be stressed, yet it will have been no easy task creating any kind of Huddersfield festival this year. That any event could occur at all is an achievement on the part of the festival team and the ensembles, musicians, broadcasters and composers with whom they work. Adaptation and renewal are a vital part of a new musicians’ toolkit, even if the pace of change can be bewildering.

Jürg Frey is at the point where the premiere of his String Quartet no. 4 at the online edition of MaerzMusik this March had the feel of the release of the newest film from a cult director. For my generation, this has largely meant someone like Quentin Tarantino or the Coen Brothers: every two to four years a new movie with sameness (recurring actors) and differences (genre) comes out, and with it a new opportunity to spend an interval of time with something carefully crafted by a unique mind with one foot in the real world and one foot out of it. We dutifully check them out, interested not just in the ‘next big thing’ but also in the moment surrounding this bit of culture.

What constitutes a concert? While many have played with the form, the basics – performers and audience in a shared space – seemed self-evident. However, at a time when restrictions limit or prevent gatherings of performers and audience, this question has assumed new significance. Indeed, the area of live music performance has borne the brunt of many of the ongoing uncertainties, changes and debates of recent months. In the midst of disappointing and unsettling news about cancellations and postponements, it was a welcome relief to read that Psappha decided to go ahead with their 2020–21 concert series. As one of the UK's preeminent contemporary music ensembles, Psappha's influence extends far beyond its Manchester home, reaching a worldwide audience via its YouTube channel. Psappha's current programme is testament to the ensemble's vision, juxtaposing well-known monoliths from the twentieth-century repertoire against works by emerging composers and those whose music is heard less often in the UK.

March 2021's online MaerzMusik Festival featured a trio of events on themes of Afro-diaspora and new music: one German discussion, one English discussion and the concert ‘Afro-Modernism in Contemporary Music’, each curated by prominent American composer George Lewis. The programme of, according to the MaerzMusik website, ‘composers of the African diaspora’ was performed by Ensemble Modern, who performed the same concert in Frankfurt in November 2020. At that concert each piece was a world or German premiere, repeated for the MaerzMusik version, at which we were treated to an empty hall with a multi-HD-camera setup. It was streamed live on 24 March and available on demand for a few months following.

The Covid-19 pandemic is an extremely difficult time for musicians, and some, out of necessity and perhaps curiosity and experimentation, have been exploring digital realisations of music, such as live streamed or pre-recorded concerts. Examples that I have experienced or have been a part of include the experimental music ensemble Bastard Assignment's Lockdown Jams involving Zoom experiments, the experimental Free Range Concert Series streamed on YouTube, the Montrose Composers’ Club Zoom collaborations, and The Ensemble Whose Name is Uhhhhmm … (formerly Lil’ Jürg Frey) who perform music in Animal Crossing using in-game sounds.