Classical:NEXT’s new adventure

Classical:NEXT has announced that its 2017 conference will include a new mini-festival. Titled ‘Seriously? – Adventures in Music’, it will see six showcase artists from Classical:NEXT’s programme perform for a public audience, along with groups such as Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. The selected artists are collectif9 (Canada), Jerez Le Cam Quartet (Argentina/France/Belgium), Park Jiha (South Korea), Sven Helbig (Germany), Trip Trip Trip (Columbia) and Zwerm (Belgium).

‘One of the aims of the festival will be to invite a wider audience and to challenge preconceptions of contemporary music,’ said Classical:NEXT director of communications Paul Bräuer, who added that the full festival programme will be announced in the coming weeks.

As for the rest of the conference, fifteen sessions are now confirmed, with a British Council-chaired debate on Brexit bound to amongst the busiest. Boosey & Hawkes, National Forum of Music Wroclaw, Carnegie Hall, Naxos, Musica Viva and Komische Oper are among the other institutions adding their expertise to this year’s event.

The longlist for the Classical:NEXT 2017 Innovation Award is also now online, with 30 projects nominated. The list will be trimmed down to 10 by the time of the conference with the winner decided via a vote hosted through online networking platform C:N NET.

Finally, Classical:NEXT has posted the 14 Project Pitches that will take place during the conference. These are short works selected by the Classical:NEXT jury, such as a multimedia opera exploring environment and culture in the Amazon and a musical documentary of migration in Greece.

Delegates must register before 3 March to be included in the Classical:NEXT guide. The conference runs from 17-20 May at de Doelen in Rotterdam.

classicalnext.com