Just a quick few words on this year's event in case anyone's interested. TRANSIT takes place over a long weekend every October in the university town of Leuven, half an hour from Brussels, under the direction of musicologist Mark Delaere, and consists principally of new work for smallish ensembles and soloists, mixing local with international composers and performers. Attendance at concerts is so good that participants have to book in advance for the concerts they aren't taking part in.

I hadn't done this for Friday evening and I also arrived late, so I missed the first concert with a new octet by Luc Brewaeys, one of the most creative orchestrators alive. On Saturday morning was a performance by Trio Scordatura, a voice/viola/keyboard lineup led by Bob Gilmore and specialising in music using microtonality. Their programme was framed by two early psalm settings by Harry Partch, one accompanied by "chromelodeon" (a retuned harmonium, here reproduced rather accurately by an electronic keyboard), the other adding a copy of Partch's "Adapted Viola", an instrument with an extended neck played in cello position. In between these, I was particularly impressed by Enclosures, a study in slowly-shifting microintervals by Peter Andriaansz, für Johannes Kepler, a memorial to Stockhausen by Christopher Fox, and Marx by a younger Irish composer, Scott McLaughlin, whose work I hadn't heard before and who I think is someone to watch out for.

This was followed in the afternoon by Arne Deforce and Yutaka Oya's cello/piano programme, consisting (without a break) of B A Zimmermann's Intercomunicazione (one of my Favourite Pieces of All Time), Neil Jordan's film of Julianne Moore performing Beckett's Not I (which I thought was superb, not having seen it before) and my nacht und träume about which members have no doubt already heard too much. In the evening, Ensemble Champ d'Action's concert was mostly a disappointment. I was expecting something interesting from Peter Ablinger's new piece for two trombones, two cellos and electronics but I quickly got tired of whatever it was trying pretentiously to prove about static clusters. A new piece by a young Flemish composer Maarten Buyl contained some flashes of brilliance but otherwise was spoiled by a surfeit of trashy "postmodern" bricolage (including several points where the music stopped and was replaced by a slideshow of beaches and eventually the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen) which added up to less than the sum of its parts. Walter Zimmermann's new work for 14 instruments had much more drawing power for me in seeming (in common with much of WZ's work) very simple and very complex at the same time.

I wish I had stayed long enough yesterday to hear a new piece for electric guitar and string quartet by Stefan van Eycken, performed by Tom Pauwels and the Arditti Quartet, but you can't have everything.

Huddersfield, 29 November I believe (which until a couple of days ago I thought was the premiere).

I think you'll find a number of members of this forum and of Music&Society will be converging on Huddersfield between 21 and 30 November, Ruby ...

If that's a live recording then I was at that concert and it knocked the stuffing out of me. (Even if it's not a live recording then I heard those forces around that time, etc etc.)

Just wanted to add a thanks (one of them?!) to Richard for his round-up of TRANSIT, which rather seemed to go unnoticed in the ensuing discussion of related matters.

Damn, I missed this. I went for two nights last year, but this year it has slipped my mind. 

You had a very positive review in this morning's De Standaard, Richard.