I am very proud to announce that Partial Durations will be covering the entirety of the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music from 5–7 September. Intense and focused, the festival promises to be not just a concert series, but a point of convergence for some of Australia and the world’s finest musical minds. I look forward to seeing you all pedaling around in Mauricio Kagel’s Eine Brise for 111 bicycles, sitting in on rehearsals with the Argonaut Ensemble, catching a rare performance of Stockhausen’s Sirius or milling around installations by Julian Day and Dale Gorfinkel. There are performances by Geneva’s Ensemble Vortex and the Argonaut Ensemble under the baton of Maxime Pascal. Some local favourites will also appear including Golden Fur, Judith Hamann, Zubin Kanga and Anna McMichael. There will be a formidable series of talks and lectures to get you thinking, including legendary musicologist Richard Toop, flautist Eric Lamb and clarinettist Ashley Smith, along with panel discussions on “Duration and Durability” and technology in composition.

For those interested in music writing, I will also provide the festival’s first “fringe event,” a short talk about cultural economy and artistic value in Australian music journalism (but which is just called, given my propensity for naming things (I must never have a child) “The How and Why of Music Writing”). This will take place at the Bendigo library at 10am, Saturday 6 December, before the Wired colloquium. I particularly hope to see you there for some funny stories and (I’ll do my best) penetrating insights.

Partial Durations is a RealTime/Matthew Lorenzon joint project.