For press enquiries, contact: lcmf@lcmf.co.uk
Press
‘The capital’s most adventurous and ambitious festival of new music’
Tom Service, The Guardian
‘London’s most important festival’
Robert Barry, The Wire
On LCMF 2022:
‘A joyous return’
Jo Hutton, The Wire
★★★★
‘[Roscoe] Mitchell sealed the deal on this stimulating evening at the London contemporary music festival with free improvisation at its most erudite and incisive’
Philip Clark, The Guardian
★★★★
‘Wild and brilliantly coloured fruits not easily found in one place'
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
‘What Does Digital Melancholia Sound Like?’
Alexander Leissle, Art Review
‘If you want to binge on all that is weird and puzzling in cutting-edge music, the London Contemporary Music Festival (LCMF) is the place to go’
Ivan Hewett, Prospect
On the films of Stom Sogo at LCMF 2022
Owen Vince, Awful Screen
On LCMF 2019:
Pick of the week in the Guardian and The Times
‘Weird, revelatory, discomforting, brilliantly curated’
Tim Rutherford-Johnson, Positionen
‘Never dull’
Irene Revell, Art Monthly
‘Zany and cutting-edge doesn’t begin to describe this eclectic week of new music’
The Times
★★★★
‘Vastly ambitious and massively popular’
Ivan Hewett, The Daily Telegraph
★★★★
‘Generous, engaging and unlike anything else. You can’t ask more of music.’
Fiona Maddocks on Cassandra Miller’s Duet for Cello and Orchestra, The Observer
★★★★
‘The text was full of dry wit... The music was a wonderfully varied splurge... Entertaining and provocative.’
Richard Morrison on Jennifer Walshe’s TIME TIME TIME, The Times
‘Big, bold, witty... An entertaining ride’
Erica Jeal on Jennifer Walshe’s TIME TIME TIME, The Guardian
On LCMF 2018:
Pick of the week in the Guardian, The Times and Sunday Times
‘Another fine instalment of London’s most important festival’
Robert Barry, The Wire
‘You never know what to expect at the London Contemporary Music Festival, except wonderfully varied works that otherwise wouldn’t get heard’
The Guardian
‘The London Contemporary Music Festival has lost none of its ability to intrigue, surprise... The audiences [are] unfailingly curious, enthusiastic and large.’
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
★★★★
‘Just as the year sinks into its soft, candied-peel-and-spice dying days, along comes the London Contemporary Music Festival to waken the senses like a smack of birch twigs.’
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
‘New music is rarely so entertaining, or so hard-hitting.’
Ivan Hewett, The Daily Telegraph
On LCMF 2017:
★★★★★
‘LCMF has punch and panache’
The Times
‘A festival that was all highlights’
The Wire
‘Masterful’
Tempo
★★★★
The Observer
Review in Frieze
Pick of the Week
Time Out, The Guardian
Interview with Joan La Barbara in theQuietus
Interview with Moor Mother in theQuietus
On In Search of Julius Eastman:
‘A truly inspiring weekend’
Robert Barry, The Wire
★★★★
‘Ecstatic energy... enthralling and moving’
Ivan Hewett, The Daily Telegraph
★★★★
‘Ferociously expressive in voice and body, alert to the irony and beauty and misery of the text, Elaine Mitchener drove a thrilling performance by Apartment House’
Anna Picard, The Times
★★★★
‘Ever-adventurous’
Peter Culshaw, The Arts Desk
‘[LCMF] reaches areas of new music that mainstream concert series rarely explore’
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
Pick of the Week
Time Out, The Sunday Times
On LCMF 2015:
‘A jubilant extravaganza... LCMF makes you hear the world differently, or perhaps as it really is’
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
‘A few years ago, this sort of undertaking would have drawn a few specialists to a small room. The LCMF has changed all that’
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times
‘Perhaps the UK’s foremost festival for truly daring music... Year on year, LCMF re-injects myriad scenes with a precious strain of kamikaze zeal’
Laurie Tompkins, Electronic Beats
‘This is surely the definition of what a London music festival should be: a tough nut, with a touch of the spectacular’
Leo Chadburn, theQuietus
Review in The Observer
Review in The Sunday Times
Review in Electronic Beats
Review in Backseat Mafia
Review in London Jazz News
Review in theQuietus
On LCMF 2014:
★★★★
‘The week has been enthralling... wide in taste, clever in programming and engaging and stylish in presentation. Long may it continue’
Ivan Hewett, The Daily Telegraph
★★★★
‘Essential’
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
★★★★
‘A clever, eclectic new-music programme... it might well become the 21st-century replacement for the much missed Almeida festival’
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
‘Deliciously provocative’
Laura Battle, The Financial Times
‘The whole festival has been little short of miraculous and I, for one, cannot wait for next year’s’
Robert Barry, theQuietus
Review in theQuietus
Review in The Sunday Times
Review in The Guardian
Review in The Daily Telegraph
Review in The Observer
Review in The New Statesman
Review in London Jazz
Feature in The Financial Times
Feature in The Times
Preview in Time Out
Preview in The Wall Street Journal Europe
Preview in Resident Advisor
Preview in Dummy
Preview in FACT
Preview in London Jazz
Preview in The Rambler
On The Music of Bernard Parmegiani:
Blog in The Guardian
Interview on BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now
Feature in The Financial Times
Feature in FACT
Preview in Sinfini
Preview in The Wire
Preview in Tiny Mix Tapes
Preview in Resident Advisor
Preview in Trebuchet
On LCMF 2013:
Classical Music Pick of 2013
The Observer
‘The excellent LCMF ... Two weeks of boundary-pushing creativity’
The Guardian
★★★★
‘At the level of sheer ambition, it’s astonishing’
The Daily Telegraph
‘As an artistic achievement, the LCMF was simply stunning’
Vice
★★★★
‘Bracing ... The ideal antidote to the sanitised safety of London’s new music scene’
Evening Standard
‘Impressive’
theQuietus
‘As close to perfection as a live perfomance could be.’
Crack Magazine on the Glenn Branca premiere
Critic’s Choice:
The Times
The Daily Telegraph
Evening Standard
The Independent on Sunday
Time Out
AnOther
Art Rabbit
Video feature in the Financial Times
Feature in The Daily Telegraph
Feature in The Times
Feature in The Guardian
Feature in FACT
Interview in Dummy
Review in Vice
Review in The Wire
Review in the Evening Standard
Review in Seismograf
Review in The Observer
Review in The Daily Telegraph
Review in London Jazz
Review in One Stop Arts
The Observer’s Classical Music Highlight of 2013
Nic Bullen’s Highlight of 2013 in FACT