For 24 years, the festival of Dark Music Days has fuelled imagination with contemporary music, thanks to the initiative of the Icelandic Composer’s Union. And with the advent of a glamorous concert hall in the midst of crisis and bankruptcy, the glittering Harpa, the crowds have grown in numbers every year.
Steve Reich has been a Barbican mainstay of 2011. In his 75th birthday year, the composer’s significant influence on contemporary classical music was honoured with the Reverberations Festival in May.