Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough studied at Royal Academy of Music and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Toshio Hosokawa, Haukur Tómasson and Anders Hillborg are recorded as having studied under Brian Ferneyhough. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are opera and classical. Employment is recorded with Stanford University, University of Chicago and Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. Works named in the authority record are String Quartet No. Distinctions recorded are Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards and Royal Philharmonic Society Award (Chamber-Scale Composition).

• Name — Brian Ferneyhough • Born — 16 January 1943 • Birthplace — Coventry, United Kingdom • Occupation — * Composer • lecturer

Ferneyhough was born in Coventry and received formal musical training at the Birmingham School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music from 1966 to 1967, where he studied with Lennox Berkeley. Ferneyhough was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1968 and moved to mainland Europe to study with Ton de Leeuw in Amsterdam, and later with Klaus Huber in Basel.[5] Between 1973 and 1986 he taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, Germany,[6] where his students included Toshio Hosokawa, Joël-François Durand, Roger Redgate, Alessandro Melchiorre, Giulio Castagnoli, Kaija Saariaho, Joël Bons (winner of the 2021 Grawemeyer Award), Hans-Ola Ericsson, and Rodney Sharman. The Royan Festival of 1974 saw the premiere of Cassandra's Dream Song, the first of several pieces for solo flute, as well as Missa Brevis, written for 12 singers. In 1975, performances of his work for large ensemble Transit and Time and Motion Study III were given; the former piece being awarded a Koussevitzky Prize, the latter performed at the Donaueschingen festival. In many of these events he was paired with fellow British composer, Michael Finnissy, with whom he became friends during his student days.[7] In 1984 he was given the title Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Between 1987 and 1999 he was Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. His graduate students at UCSD included composers Chaya Czernowin and Mark Applebaum, among many others. In 2000, he became William H. Bonsall Professor in Music at Stanford University. For the 2007–08 academic year, he was visiting professor at the Harvard University Department of Music. Between 1978 and 1994 Ferneyhough was a composition lecturer at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and, since 1990, has directed an annual mastercourse at the Fondation Royaumont in France. In 2007, Ferneyhough received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for lifetime achievement.[8] In 2009 he was appointed foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.[9] In 2012 he was awarded an honorary DMus from Goldsmiths, University of London; and in December 2018 he received an honorary degree from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for his contribution to contemporary classical music.[10]

• First String Quartet (1963) • Sonatas for String Quartet (1967) • Second String Quartet (1980) • Adagissimo (1983) • Third String Quartet (1987) • Fourth String Quartet (1989–90) • Fifth String Quartet (2006) • Dum transisset I–IV for string quartet (2007) • Exordium for string quartet (2008) • Sixth String Quartet (2010) • Silentium (2014)

• Sieben Sterne for organ (1970) • Cassandra's Dream Song for flute (1970–71) • Time and Motion Study I for bass clarinet (1971–77) • Time and Motion Study II for singing cellist and live electronics (1973–76) • Unity Capsule for solo flute (1976)[15] • Lemma-Icon-Epigram for piano (1982) • Kurze Schatten II for guitar (1989) (essay, analysis, analysis, score sample) • Trittico per G.S. for double bass (1989) • Bone Alphabet for percussion (1991) (score sample) • Unsichtbare Farben for violin (1999) (score sample) • Opus Contra Naturam, for solo piano (2000) • no time (at all) for two guitars (2004), five pieces • Sisyphus Redux for alto flute (2009) • Quirl for solo piano (2011–13), part of Nicolas Hodges' Studies Project

• Prometheus for wind sextet (1967) • Transit for solo voices and ensemble (1972–75) • Time and Motion Study III for sixteen solo voices (3S, Mez, 4A, 4T, 2Bar, 2B), percussion and electronics (1974) • Carceri d'Invenzione I for fl, ob, 2cl, bn, hn, tpt, trb, euphonium, 1perc, pf, 2vn, va, vc, db [1121, 1111.2111] (1982) (analysis, score sample) (inspired by the "Carceri d'Invenzione" by Giambattista Piranesi) • Etudes Transcendantales for soprano and chamber ensemble (1982–1985) • Carceri d'Invenzione II for flute and ensemble (1985) • Carceri d'Invenzione III for fifteen wind instruments and percussion (1986) • La Chute d’Icare for solo clarinet and chamber ensemble (1988) (program note) • Terrain for violin and chamber ensemble (1992) • Allgebrah for oboe and 9 solo strings (1996) (score sample) • Incipits for solo viola, obbligato percussion and six instruments (1996) • The Doctrine of Similarity for chorus (SATB), 3 clarinets, violin, piano and percussion (2000) (score sample) • Chronos-Aion for large ensemble (2007–8) • Renvoi/Shards for quarter-tone guitar and vibraphone (2008) • Liber Scintillarum for 6 instruments (2012)

• Firecycle Beta for two pianos and two orchestras with five conductors (1969-1971) • La Terre est un Homme for orchestra (1979) • Plötzlichkeit for large orchestra (2006)

• Shadowtime (1999–2004), libretto by Charles Bernstein, premiered at the Munich Biennale

Brian Ferneyhough was born on 16 January 1943 in Coventry.