Lab.Oratorium (2019) is the concluding part of Philippe Manoury's Köln Trilogy. It follows In situ (2013) and Ring (2016) in exploring the spoken voice as a musical element, the wider possibilities of the orchestra, and the use of sound spatialization and live electronics. Lab.Oratorium is also a work deeply rooted in the present. In this interview, Philippe Manoury discusses the political and poetic significance of this work, conceived as an artistic response to Europe's responsibility in the tragic situation of migrants around the Mediterranean. He also develops his thoughts on musical form, spatialization and creative process in music.

This article outlines and elucidates the methods used in my compositional work. I often find it impossible to limit my compositional approach to core theorems and describe them succinctly; my procedure and methodology often comprise opposing poles. As multi-polarity is a decisive criterion of my work, this specific dichotomy of methods and motivations is the overriding subject matter of this text. These characteristics also constitute my temperament, which is why I often perceive my pieces as very personal. This is not – at least not primarily – meant emotionally or subjectively, but in the way tasks, situations, musical works, or life itself are approached. I will examine numerous contradictory couplings within my work and explain their personal significance: Seriousness vs. Humour/Irony, Organism vs. Virtuality, Pop Music vs. New Music, Conception vs. Intuition, Expressivity vs. Introversion, and Technology vs. Romance.

James Clarke, successfully completing a PhD in composition as he turned 60, has never been afraid of challenging convention. A recent piece for unaccompanied violin, 2017-V, takes a typically abrasive look at a long-established instrumental genre, and relishes the obvious restrictions – four strings, two hands – in a forceful exploration of a single, multivalent musical idea. That idea evolves through febrile transformations to promote a connected yet never entirely stable music discourse. Various appropriate contexts are referenced in order to define and underline the music's distinctiveness.

This article looks at a creative trajectory in my recent work, an ongoing exploration of how the coordination of and precise interaction between performers in music-performance can be considered a primary compositional parameter (and perhaps compositional material in its own right). This investigation began with a survey of performer interactions in Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps and older music of my own. This led to an interest in the entanglement of ‘instrumental theatre’ and compositional scenarios in which performer behaviours, in relation to coordination and interaction, contribute idiosyncratically (i.e. outside of the more typical interpretation/improvisation models) to the music.

A small group of composers and performers are collaborating orally/aurally on the creation of experimental music that eschews written scores (‘living scores’). By charting the overlaps between working methods and relationships – both social and musical – this article endeavours to shed light on how these practices rub against standard modes of documentation, transmission, scholarship and performance. The article begins by mapping out of the orally transmitted collaborative practices of four composers – Cassandra Miller, Pascale Criton, Éliane Radigue and me – as documented through interviews with prominent performer-collaborators such as Deborah Walker, Silvia Tarozzi, Juliet Fraser and Cat Hope. A guiding metaphor frames these practices as gardens and highlights shared thematic concepts such as extended time, hospitality, note-taking and responsibility.

Based on email interviews and the recently published book Music of Possibility, this article considers the work of the Welsh composer Richard Barrett, who turned 60 in 2019. A brief overview of Barrett's work since the late 1980s is offered, alongside discussion of the work-cycle currently in progress: natural causes, based on texts by the late Simon Howard. Among the themes considered are Barrett's interest in working in cycles such as these; aspects of his compositional technique, in particular serialism and heterophony; the influence of popular music; environmental art; and the shadow of Schubert.

The Vienna State Opera made headlines around the world last December, boasting that it had finally commissioned a full-scale opera by a female composer. Olga Neuwirth, known for her difficult, unrestrained character (both musical and personal), was a curious and adventurous choice for the Wiener Staatsoper, the embassy of a conservative cultural landscape and gatekeeper of highbrow art. Choosing Virginia Woolf's seminal novel about a poet who lives through the ages and who one day miraculously changes sexes was a fitting choice for this maverick, whose work blurs the lines between genius – in all its anachronistic complexities – and fremdschämend, the well-established German equivalent of the facepalm, always scoring particularly high on listicles of ‘quintessential German words’.

Kevin Volans achieved remarkable fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the Kronos Quartet's recordings of White Man Sleeps and Hunting:Gathering. With record-breaking album sales, he was perhaps even one of the most accessible twentieth-century composers operating outside of the popular or film music spheres. Thirty years later, his position could not be more different. Volans's controversial 2016 keynote at the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland, entitled ‘If You Need an Audience, We Don't Need You’, announced most vehemently his current stance in its Babbittean (or, more accurately perhaps, Feldmanesque) denouncement of populism and the music industry. For him, the tactics of publicists and marketers engender a breakdown in respect between audience and composer, while short-form works required by festivals are the epitome of a composition culture in regression.

Located at the end of a quiet side street in the middle of Birmingham, the CBSO centre is the venue for many of BCMG's concerts throughout the year. If the venue seems somewhat hidden away, concealed behind a Victorian red brick façade, the music that takes place inside is certainly not insular. As one of the world's leading contemporary music ensembles, BCMG's longstanding commitment to commissioning new work, and to fostering relationships with composers, has continued since 2016 under the artistic directorship of Stephan Meier. The final UK concert of 2019, Migrating Sounds, provides clear evidence of the ensemble's aims. Of the four works performed, Richard Causton's Transients and Vito Žuraj's Tension for two ensembles were world premieres, Rebecca Saunders’ Scar was a UK premiere, and Shiori Usui's Deep was commissioned by BCMG in 2014. The pieces by Causton and Saunders were also ‘sound investment commissions’, part funded by many individuals who, in return for their support, receive various rewards, including rehearsal and reception invitations. The concert was conducted by Michael Wendeberg.

Guillaume Connesson is a French composer widely performed across Europe and the US, but almost entirely unheard in the UK, in concert or broadcast. The article ‘Glimmers in a Dark Age’ (TEMPO 73/288 (2019), 70–80) was my attempt to introduce a British audience to a composer whose work I find compelling, beautifully crafted and worthy of wider attention.