Ferneyhough was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1968 and moved to Europe to study with Ton de Leeuw in Amsterdam, and later with Klaus Huber in Basel.
One of his latest works is an opera, Shadowtime, based on the life of the German philosopher Walter Benjamin. This is still incomplete, although the first part has been been performed as the piece The Doctrine of Similarity.
Works by Ferneyhough include: