This year Sydney is hosting the 2010 International Society for Contemporary Music  (ISCM)World New Music Days Festival from 30 April to 9 May and in doing so heralds the first time in the 88-year history of ISCM that the prestigious event will be held in the Southern Hemisphere.

The World New Music Days Festival is the largest festival of contemporary music ever to be held in Australia. Since the ISCM’s founding in 1922, ISCM festivals have included the world premieres of works by a diverse range of important composers, many of which have become standard repertoire, for example Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, and Ravel’s Piano Concerto for Left Hand. Australian works have regularly featured in the festival since 1938 in London, when Peggy Glanville Hicks’ Choral Suite was performed on a program which included Britten’s Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge, and Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos, Percussion and Celesta.