CAB building to be renamed Steinitz Building after HCMF founder

The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, now in its 40^th season, gets under way today

ONE of the University of Huddersfield’s most iconic buildings is to be renamed in honour of a former professor who placed the town on the music map of the world.

Richard Steinitz, now an Emeritus Professor of the University, launched the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 1978 and was artistic director for the first 23 years of an event that has become internationally famous and able to attract the world’s leading composers and performers.

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The 40^th edition of HCMF begins today, Friday 17 November 2017.  The University’s Creative Arts Building is one of the venues that will feature in the festival and now it has been announced that in 2018 it will be renamed the Steinitz Building.

“This will be a tribute not only to one of our most eminent academics, but also to an institution – the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival – that has continued to grow in stature over the course of almost 40 years,” said the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Bob Cryan.

This year’s Festival runs until Sunday 26 November and it will feature 32 world premieres – including a new work by Scottish composer James Dillon – and 105 UK premieres. 

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When he founded the Festival, Richard Steinitz had already been based in Huddersfield since 1961, when he joined the School of Music at the then Huddersfield College of Technology.

His book Explosions in November describes the origins of HCMF, from a small-scale event to one that was able to attract major composers such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio.  Audiences and performers come from around the world and BBC Radio 3 broadcasts many of the concerts.

The University of Huddersfield has a global reputation for research and teaching in contemporary music, based in its Creative Arts Building, opened in 2008.  The University has adopted a policy of renaming its key buildings after famous and influential regional personages – including the Brontës, scientist Sir Joseph Priestley, factory campaigner Richard Oastler and the actor Sir Patrick Stewart, who is also the University’s Emeritus Chancellor.

Now Professor Steinitz, who retired from the University in 2004 after a long career in teaching and research, is the latest eminent figure to receive the honour.  In addition to his HCMF role, he has also been active as a composer and broadcaster and as a leading musicologist, specialising in 20^th century music.