Made in Manchester: The RNCM celebrates homegrown talent with three-day festival

Celebrating the incredible breadth of world-class music created by students, staff and esteemed alumni, the RNCM presents Made in Manchester, a three-day festival of diverse contemporary compositions, conversations and innovations exploring how the sounds of today are shaping the music of tomorrow.

Taking place from Wed 3 to Fri 5 May, the festival invites inquisitive listeners and curious concert-goers to a ‘powerful experience’ of modern, groundbreaking music across a sweeping range of genres, from solo works and chamber orchestras to world premieres and new, boundary-pushing orchestral works.

Commencing with a free symposium on both the challenges of 21st century orchestral writing and different conceptions of the future of composition, song-writing and production at the RNCM, Made in Manchester features an array of inventive compositions which explore the foundations of cutting-edge musical revolution, including the world première of Meriel Price’s Building Sights, a visceral and subversive 50th anniversary piece which captures the sights and sounds of the RNCM building, as well as an evocative production by ‘composer-performer-provocatrice’ Laura Bowler which uses amplified voice and flute to examine notions of climate change in music, while THIS IS FINE fuses electronic soundscapes, acoustic instruments and digital animation in a genre-bending evening of intrigue and ingenuity led by four ‘powerhouse’ artists.

Alongside a programme of pioneering sonic experimentation, Made in Manchester hosts a series of eclectic orchestral performances, including unheard works by the RNCM Brand New Orchestra – alongside a rendition of ‘playful’ tone poem Liaison, written by former Head of Composition and Contemporary Music, Anthony Gilbert – and an intimate, all-embracing showcase of new music for solo and duo instruments with Exotic Vapour. Promising an unforgettable workday lunch break, Gary Carpenter’s new work for saxophone quartet celebrates the North and Adam Gorb explores themes of homelessness in the moving Thursday Lunchtimes concert, before a group of world-renowned artists ‘advance the frontiers of vocal music’ with Fantastical Songs the following day.

For more information and the full Made in Manchester lineup, click here.