York Spring Festival of New Music - 29th april-3rd may 2015

Help us bring new music to york!

The York Spring Festival of New Music is a 5-day exploration of new music, run by an enthusiastic team of students from the University of York Music Department. The Festival celebrates the best of new music in a way that's both accessible and fun. We're featuring world premieres of new works, offering chances for participation, and supporting artists and composers at all stages of their careers, in a way that's uniquely York.

We are passionate about making a fantastically exciting range of new music accessible to all, and it's for this reason that we are holding our events at a variety of venues across the city. In addition to this, we're committed to supporting York-based artists, with a range of performers from PercusSing (Ana Beard Fernández and Zoë Craven), a soprano and marimba duo who are both 2014 University of York graduates, to the brilliant Anna Meredith, a York alumna who as a composer is involved in everything from the BBC's Ten Pieces project, which aims to inspire musical creativity in schoolchildren, to touring her electronic music with her band. We're also holding an education day with local schools - it is very rare that children encounter contemporary music within the school curriculum and so we have invited local schools to hear talks, workshop their own pieces and attend our concerts so they can encounter this brilliant and enriching music for themselves. This year we are also very proud to be able to say that we have programmed works by women composers in every concert.

the programme

Our annual Spring Festival is bursting with a kaleidoscope of chamber recitals, an incredible range of instruments, composers, a brand new opera: a five-day celebration of new music that includes ancient music and texts from Sumaria and Mesopotamia, and Joan of Arc as well as world premieres and a club night.

Programme highlights include:

• The Lyre Ensemble perform music Babylonian and Sumerian music from their new album
• The Chimera Ensemble premieres a substantial new work by Richard Barrett in the unique acoustic of the Rymer Auditorium
• Percussionist Beau Stocker explores percussion from North and South Sudan, accompanied by live electronics
• International soloist Geert Callaert presents a programme of new works for piano including Marc Yeats' fantastic the magical control of rain 
• Dynamic new soprano and percussion duo PercusSing (Ana Beard Fernández and Zoë Craven) give a late night performance of new music written especially for them
• Chamber ensemble Dark Inventions make their return to the Festival for the third year, with a colourful concert including the work from which they take their name
• A late night performance of La Pucelle, a brand new chamber opera by Rose Miranda Hall - depicting the trial and personality of Joan of Arc
• the assembled present line/shadow, a concert devised in relation to its venue: the deconsecrated church of St Martin-cum-Gregory (The Stained Glass Centre)
• A composition workshop chaired by Anna Meredith, to which students from York, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Huddersfield are invited to submit works
• Anna Meredith performs a rare live set with her 4-piece band

To view our full programme, visit our website here.

where does your money go?

All of the money raised by the Festival goes towards paying our fantastic professional musicians, hiring venues in the city centre, creating beautiful printed media, and making the Festival run as smoothly as possible. We are voluntarily run, and should we be lucky enough to make more money than we need this year, it will go right back into making next year's Festival even more fabulous! 

By supporting the Festival you are supporting the artists who are taking part at all stages of their careers, venues and organisations in the City of York such as the Stained Glass Centre and the Flanagan Collective who are hosting our events, the students who gain valuable experience from running the Festival, and most importantly the community of York itself - our treasured audience, for whom we're making all this happen!

we need your support!                                                                                                         

In order for the Festival to flourish and reach its potential, we would be thrilled if you could pledge your support and make a gift!

Even if you don't feel you can support us financially, if you could share the project with anyone you feel would be interested, we'd be incredibly grateful - and feel free to 'follow' us for updates on our progress. 

If you are able to donate some money towards us - amazing! Thank you!

On the right you'll see our range of rewards, with great things up for grabs from the price of a student concert ticket right up to your own personalised pack of Spring Fest goodies.

To keep track of all the events and updates follow us through our website, Twitter and Facebook - we'd love to hear from you!