Brian Ferneyhough in residence as ST Lee Visiting Professorial Fellow in November 2013
London’s School of Advanced Study announces two ST Lee Visiting Professorial Fellows for 2013-14
Professor Roger Kain, Dean and Chief Executive of the University of London’s School of Advanced Study (SAS), has announced the two visiting scholars who will hold the prestigious invitation-only ST Lee Visiting Professorial Fellowships for 2013-14. They are Professor Brian Ferneyhough and Dr Lawrence Albert Joseph, President of the Senate of Grenada.
Brian Ferneyhough, currently William H Bonsall Professor at Stanford University, is one of the most original and influential composers in contemporary music. His work, recognised by such international awards as the Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis, evokes a compressed musical world of dislocated events, colliding pulses and shimmering textures. His highly elaborate notational practice invites performers constantly to reassess and question their relationship to the text. For some five decades he has continuously engaged with and provoked the debate to define a new artistic aesthetic for contemporary music, whether as creator, thinker, writer or teacher, in Germany, Europe and the US. His visit to London, in his 70th year, is a fitting tribute to an outstanding career and an acknowledgement of his connection to the university following the award of an honorary doctorate in 2012.
Professor Ferneyhough will be based at SAS, in close association with the Institute of Musical Research, for three weeks in November 2013. During his time in the UK he will attend a series of public performances of his works by Christopher Redgate and Quatour Diotima, Linea Ensemble, Nicolas Hodges and Arditti Quartet. He will give talks at the universities of London and Huddersfield, and attend a book launch of Lois Fitch’s new biography Brian Ferneyhough at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Professor Brian Ferneyhough said of his appointment: ‘I am excited and honored to accept the challenge posed by the ST Lee Visiting Professorial Fellowship for 2013. Such enlightened provisions do much to subvert often all-too-rigid models of academic and creative endeavor by actively questioning the boundaries between them. The schedule of events planned under the auspices of this fellowship is wide-reaching, diverse in format and intent and potentially open to unforeseen interactions. I am most grateful to the Institute of Musical Research of the School of Advanced Study for this opportunity to re-assess my thinking in both theoretical and practical contexts.’
Professor Roger Kain CBE FBA, Dean and Chief Executive of the School of Advanced Study, said: ‘I am delighted that the School will welcome two such distinguished figures to its scholarly community in 2013-14. SAS awards the ST Lee Fellowship to eminent scholars in the humanities who promote research through the global standing that they enjoy in their own field of inquiry and through their active engagement with the wider public. Both Professor Brian Ferneyhough and Dr Lawrence Joseph have demonstrated not only excellence in their respective fields but also the reach and significance of the humanities to the wider culture and to society at large. I very much look forward to welcoming them both to the School and I hope that they will benefit as much from joining our interdisciplinary research environment as we undoubtedly will from their intellectual contribution during their time here.’
For the full press release see the School of Advanced Study website
Details of Brian Ferneyhough events at the School of Advanced Study
