Classical Preview: Showcase of new sounds in new settings

Hear more than 80 works performed for the first time live in the UK, all packed into 10 days of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival opening today in the unlikely setting of the town's railway station.

The festival has come a long way from the days when the world's most famous avant garde classical composers paraded their latest works. This year you can sample the sounds of converted junk, mobile phones, gramophones, text messaging, with one concert aboard a commuter train heading to Stalybridge.

As always there is a "Composer in Residence" and this year it is the British-born, Rebecca Saunders, a young woman creating a few ripples on the calm musical surface in her new home in Berlin.

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She brings a large-scale work, Chroma, originally written in 2003 for the giant Turbine Hall of Tate Modern and here performed by the famous group, musicFabrik.

The very word "contemporary" is sufficient to send people scurrying for musical sanctuary, and this year sees bridges being built to the younger generation with the festival's first Family Morning when parents and children combine in a workshop of music and art, including participation in a radio broadcast. Some of Europe's most outstanding performers take part in the 50 events, including the London Sinfonietta, ensemble recherche, Arditti Quartet, Elision, the fabulous young Danish cellist, Jakob Kullberg, and locally-based new music pianist, Phillip Thomas.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival November 19-26. 01484 430528. Full programme at www.hcmf.co.uk.

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