Monodramas and defunensemble in Huddersfield
The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (HCMF) in UK will present two events with Finnish music this year. On 18 November the festival will show monodramas by Lotta Wennäkoski and Perttu Haapanen. On 20 November on programme will be defunensemble's project with Magnus Lindberg's Action-Situation-Signification (1982), paired with American composer Joel Ryan's new work.
The two monodramas were first seen at Musica nova Helsinki festival in early 2011. The commission brought composers together with other rising artists: Lotta Wennäkoski's Lelele is created with visual artist Elina Brotherus, and Perttu Haapanen's Nothing to Declare is visualised by choreographer Tomi Paasonen.
The soloists, soprano Pia Freund (in Lelele) and bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood (in Nothing to Declare) perform the works together with the three musicians of Plus Ensemble. Since the premiere, the works have already toured at several important contemporary music festivals.