Luke Bedford's ‘muscular and acerbic’ (The Guardian) 5 Abstracts are to receive a continental outing this Autumn, when Reinbert de Leeuw conducts the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble in the work’s Dutch première at the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw on 23 Oct. Both ensembles were long-term supporters of our UE composers long before they joined forces; their combined forces will now also be premièring Harrison Birtwistle’s Cortege in Amsterdam just one month earlier on 16 Sept.

Three weeks earlier in Venice, Diego Masson will conduct players from the London Sinfonietta in Bedford’s eight-player Man Shoots Strangers from Skyscraper. Inspired by The Phantom of Liberty, the work borrows from the tangential style of Buñuel’s film, the music moving in ‘unexpected directions, sparked off by the smallest of triggers’.