THE Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music at Queen's University Belfast does not lean heavily on themes these days. Nevertheless there is an Italian flavour this year, and an emphasis on the unfashionable modernist composers who have had a rough time in recent years.
As Minimalists such as Glass and Riley have become mainstream, the old guard has become increasingly marginalised. Almost overnight, the avant garde has become conservative.
Perhaps for this very reason, I expected to enjoy Ensemble Corrente's concert of Boulez, Dillon, Donatoni and others, but in the event too many of the items in this rather long concert seemed academic, and only Murail's atmospheric.
Ethers and the Piano Quartet by Gerald Barry - one composer who can be relied upon to shake things up really came alive for me.
The trouble with Maurizio Barbetti's Sunday lunchtime concert of pieces for amplified solo viola and tape was that there tended to be the same sound effects in each piece. Only the pieces by Xenakis and Ennio Morricone seemed to have much creative vitality.
Things improved in Rolf Hind's evening recital, partly due to Hind's superb pianism, equally at home in the delicate dreamworlds of Murail and Sciarrino. Hind's explosive but disciplined virtuosity found an outlet in Xenakis' Evryall, which brought the recital to an exciting conclusion.
