South of Lyon, in the Rhônes Alpes region, the pretty little medieval town of Crest sits picturesquely on a hill overlooking the Drôme. (Those of you who own cameras will know that I mean that adverb literally.) For tourists, Crest is the home of the tallest castle tower in France and of the longest wooden bridge. For music lovers, however, much as they like castles and bridges, Crest is better known as the home of the Futura Festival. Since 1993, composer Denis Dufour has presented some of the finest music by some of the finest composers in the world. (Those of you who own cd players can find out for yourselves that there’s not a trace of hyperbole in that last remark.)

I had never heard of the festival, to my shame, until March of 2006, in an interview with Michèle Bokanowski for Asymmetry Music Magazine. Since her latest concert piece, Chant d’ombre, would be given its world premiere performance there, I could hardly be expected to miss it. And so I didn’t. That was my first visit to Crest, my first experience of Futura. Unfortunately, the fairly leisurely pace of former festivals (six hours a day or so) was missing from this one, which took place over only one weekend. Took over one weekend, I should say, as it went from nine o’clock Friday evening, August 18, to 8 o’clock the following Sunday morning—35 hours straight. (There was also one concert on the 27^th of August, but I was already in Köln by then, listening to musikFabrik play two pieces by Luc Ferrari I had never heard before, Presque Rien avec Instruments. Exploitation des concepts no. 5 from 2001 and Après Presque Rien from 2004. Both pieces, for ensemble and samplers, sounded to me as if Luc Ferrari were headed into the future by revisiting the past. His past. An interesting idea—cut short alas before it could be fully exploited.)

Fortunately there was plenty of Ferrari in 2006. Futura 06 opened with