SOUNDS NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL

On Monday, 10 May 2010, Cantus Ensemble performed at the Sounds New Music Festival (7-16 May 2010), an international festival of contemporary music held in Canterbury for 13 consecutive years. On this pioneer visit to Great Britain, Cantus Ensemble played at the Methodist Church of Saint Peter.

The theme of this year's festival was Symbolism and Numerology in Music: The Number Seven, where Cantus Ensemble gave one of the key performances together with ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern and CBSO Chamber Players.

Under the artistic leadership of conductor Berislav Šipuš, the Ensemble was able to fully express the breadth and variety of its style, ranging from virtuosity to melodiousness. The mastery of their performance was evident in the subtle partnership between the instrumental and electronic parts of Lidia Zielińska's Conrad's Seven Islands (the Polish composer was a guest of Cantus Ensemble last autumn, as part of the EU project Re: New Music); in the musical piece composed for a sequence of Murnau's 1926 Faust by the young British composer Emily Howard; and in the bold music score Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae by the British composer Harrison Birtwistle.

Martina Gojčeta Silić gave an exhilarating performance of Kurt Weill's Frauentanz op. 10, and in vocal collaboration with Tvrtko Pavlin, a member of the ensemble, made the audience laugh with the new piece by Berislav Šipuš, Ten Hotti. The Ensemble also premiered A Chain of Wonders, a new piece by the British composer Paul Max Edlin, and the concert ended with a virtuoso performance of Dubravko Detoni's dolce furioso, followed by ovations and applause from the delighted audience.