London’s Southbank Centre has announced the details of a new contemporary music festival, SoundState, which will take place on 16–20 January 2019.

The new festival will include over 30 world and UK premieres by composers from across the world, including Helen Grimes, Dai Fujikura, and Anders Hillborg, and performances from The London Philharmonic conducted by Marin Alsop, Ensemble Modern and Sam Amidon. 

The festival centres around the work of three featured artists, American flautist Claire Chase, Chinese composer Du Yun and British composer Rebecca Saunders. Chase will perform a concert of works commissioned as part of her Density 2016 project, and a free late-night set of experimental flute music. She will also lead a community workshop based around Marcos Balter’s participatory work Pan. 

A specially commissioned work by Du Yun, Where We Lost Our Shadows, will be performed by the Aurora Orchestra in a concert curated by the composer. She will also perform a duo set with percussionist Shayna Dunkelman, curate a concert of Indonesian and Chinese music, and lead a workshop on composing for Chinese instruments. 

Ensemble Modern will present a portrait concert of the music of Rebecca Saunders, including the RPS award-winning Skin, based on extracts from Samuel Beckett’s The Ghost Trio and James Joyce’s Ulysses.

SoundState will also feature three panel discussions debating the ‘State of Sound’, and covering topics such as the relevance of new music to today’s world, music education and creativity, and new music audiences. PRS for Music will also present free advice sessions for composers on issues fo rights, royalties and publishing. 

For the full line-up of concerts, workshops and events, see southbankcentre.co.uk.