Brian Ferneyhough was born in 1943 in Coventry, England. Studied at the Birmingham School of Music and with Lennox Berkeley at the Royal Academy of Music in London, later with Ton de Leeuw at the Amsterdamsch Conservatorium and with Klaus Huber in Basel. Lecturer in composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, 1973–77; professor, 1978–86. Coordinator of composition courses at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, 1984–96. Professor at the University of California, San Diego (1987–98) and at Stanford University (since 1999). Awards include the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1984) and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2007). Member of the Berlin Akademie der Künste and the Royal Academy of Music.