Ideal & Flying Height Celebrating Coventry-born composer Brian Ferneyhough's 75th birthday this year Download the concert programme Marie-Christine Zupancic explores Brian Ferneyhough's 'Cassandra's Dream Song' Brian Ferneyhough in conversation with Howard Skempton Sunday 9 December 2018, 4pmBradshaw Hall, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Coventry-born Brian Ferneyhough celebrates his 75th birthday this year - and to celebrate we have invited his good friends and our colleagues, the Arditti Quartet, to perform his music here in the heart of the Midlands. Ferneyhough’s music is renowned for its interwoven lines and it hums with activity - it’s sometimes called ‘complexity’ but this obscures its humanity. In Dum Transisset I-IV we hear the composer’s tribute to Christopher Tye, a sixteenth-century composer and organist; La Chute d’Icare conjours Icarus’s stunning achievement of flight, thwarted by his hubris; and Funérailles reflects on pianist and composer Franz Liszt’s work of the same name written over a century earlier. In addition to works by Ferneyhough, we thought we’d celebrate more home-grown talent with works by Jonathan Harvey (born in Sutton Coldfield), Charlotte Bray (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire alumnus and former BCMG Apprentice Composer in Residence) and Michael Wolters (Deputy Head of Composition, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire). Oliver Janes Solo Clarinet Arditti QuartetEmilio Pomarico Conductor Brian Ferneyhough La Chute d’Icare (1988), 10′Brian Ferneyhough Funérailles I & II (1969-1980), 23′Jonathan Harvey (1939 - 2012) Scena (1992), 14′Charlotte Bray (b. 1982) Beneath the Dawn Horizon (2008), 6′Michael Wolters (b. 1971) Trauerkonzert (2000), 8′ In partnership with Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Booking for this event has now closed. Manage Cookie Preferences