November 30, 2024

Premiere at hcmf// 2024

Premiere of ‘in the universe everyth ng is a circle’ at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2024 hcmf// 2024 felt special in many ways. I composed this piece during covid and it lived a life of its own in the bubble my mind and in a very lonely place called the internet. The vocal quality, speaking, whispering, humming is central to the piece and is waiting to surface at any moment – and it does, but it seems to communicate as if a person would be talking to themselves. For me and as with every piece, the premiere and the encounter with other human beings, sets the piece free from my mind thus sort of making space for other pieces in there. It took three years for this piece to surface and perhaps I have moved forward with my compositional ideas, but with its extensive use of live processing of sound and home studio flavour of the audio files (recorded at my home and Heather’s, her playing and my own voice) it certainly feels like a milestone in my catalogue of mixed pieces.

I’m very happy and content about the premiere concert itself and the people I met during the short visit at hcmf// 2024. A huge thanks to Heather Roche, who really lifted this piece off the ground. It felt a bit overwhelming to receive a great review:

“Perhaps the most striking small-scale work i heard at this year’s HCMF was ‘in the universe everyth ng is a circle’ for contrabass clarinet and electronics by Finnish composer Maija Hynninen, premièred by Heather Roche on ‘Shorts’ day.” Simon Cummings