Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

02/10/2026

👂What does Birmingham sound like to you?

On Sunday, composer Sara Caneva and BCMG led a Soundwalk around the city’s Jewellery Quarter.

It marked the launch of Wayfinding B, a project that invites you the public to listen, record and submit your favourite sounds of Birmingham.

🔗 Submit your sounds by 30 November at www.bcmg.org.uk/sounds or via link in bio.

Sara will use a selection of your recordings in a new BCMG-commissioned composition, which will be performed in St Paul’s Square in one year’s time.

Check out these clips from our Soundwalk:
1️⃣–3️⃣ St Paul’s Square
4️⃣ Railway underpasses on Henrietta Street
5️⃣ St Paul’s Tram Stop
6️⃣ Chamberlain Clock
7️⃣ Warstone Lane Cemetery
8️⃣ Jewellery Quarter Station
9️⃣ Sara Caneva
🔟 Listening prompt

What sound of Birmingham intrigues you? …comforts you? …inspires you? Listen, record and submit by 30 November 🎧

21/09/2026

What does Birmingham sound like?

Next Sunday, join composer Sara Caneva for a morning of close listening and field recording through Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter.

Beginning in St Paul’s Square, Sara will lead the Wayfinding B Soundwalk through streets, squares, transport hubs and green spaces, listening to the changing sounds of the city and exploring them through professional microphones and field-recording equipment. No previous experience is needed.

The walk launches a much bigger project. Between now and November, we’re inviting people across Birmingham to record and share the sounds around them — from trams, tools and sirens to birds, rain, voices, machinery or something only you seem to notice. Your recording could help shape Sara’s new composition, Wayfinding B, which BCMG will premiere in autumn 2027.

👣 Wayfinding B Soundwalk
Sunday 27 September, 9am
Jewellery Quarter, beginning at St Paul’s Square
FREE | Booking required via https://www.bcmg.org.uk/Event/wayfinding-b-soundwalk

⏰ Joining the Soundwalk later?
You’re welcome to meet us along the route. On Sunday morning, bookers will be sent a link to a live Soundwalk tracker to see where the group is currently listening and recording.

🎧 Can’t join us? You can still contribute.
Record a sound anywhere in Birmingham using your phone or another recording device, then upload it at bcmg.org.uk/sounds.

19/09/2026

Seed pods, woodblocks, leaves… and a cactus. 🌿

A glimpse inside rehearsals at CBSO Centre, where percussionists Nathan Gregory, Matt Firkins and Miriam Kitchener are preparing John Cage’s Branches for Cycle the Score tomorrow.

In Branches, amplified plant materials and found natural objects become the instruments: rattled seed pods, rubbed and tapped wood, rustling leaves and the unmistakable sound of a cactus.

Hear it live tomorrow at Midlands Arts Centre’s Outdoor Theatre, as part of a programme that also features music by Theo Loevendie and Carola Bauckholt.

If this has made you curious, come and hear what happens when you put the natural world under a microphone.

🎟️ Tickets for Cycle the Score are available now — https://macbirmingham.co.uk/events/bcmg-cycle-the-score

18/09/2026

🎧 Sound on: Birmingham, heard differently.

Last night, BCMG oboist Melinda Maxwell improvised live alongside some of Birmingham-born wildlife sound recordist Martyn Stewart’s early field recordings of the city, bringing together Birmingham’s musical and environmental sound worlds at the launch of Sounds of Birmingham.

Hosted at the National Trust’s Birmingham Back to Backs, the evening introduced The Listening Planet — Martyn’s extraordinary archive of environmental recordings gathered over more than 60 years — and an ambition to create a lasting home for it here in Birmingham.

This short extract captures Melinda responding in the moment to sounds recorded in and around the city decades ago: a conversation across time between performer, place and the sounds of Birmingham itself.

We were very pleased to be part of the beginning of this ambitious new project.

14/09/2026

🚲 Bring your bike.
🎵 Experience strange and beautiful sounds.
🍺 Stop for a b**r.
🔔 And become part of the performance.

On Sunday 20 September, join us for Cycle the Score: a guided bicycle concert through south Birmingham, starting and finishing at Midlands Arts Centre.

Travel together by bike between MAC, Highbury Hall and Birmingham Brewing Company, stopping for live performances by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group along the way. Hear music by John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Harrison Birtwistle, Carola Bauckholt and more in unexpected places, with the chance to stop for a b**r at the brewery too.

Then, back at MAC, everyone becomes the performers in Mauricio Kagel’s A Breeze: ringing bicycle bells, sounding horns, singing and whistling as one enormous moving ensemble. These clips are from our rehearsal on 6 September. Now we need the rest of you.

🌿 Cycle the Score forms part of MAC’s Big Green Weekender, in association with Eco Birmingham, celebrating creativity, sustainable travel and Birmingham’s green spaces. Our stop at Highbury Hall also forms part of Birmingham Heritage Week, giving you the chance to experience this remarkable building and its grounds along the way.

📅 Sunday 20 September 2026 | 3–6.30pm
📍 Start and finish: Midlands Arts Centre
🎫 Tickets: £20 | Ages 14+
🚲 Bring your own bike (proficient bike handling skills required)
🔗 Book now via MAC → https://macbirmingham.co.uk/events/bcmg-cycle-the-score

Presented by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Midlands Arts Centre, in association with Birmingham Brewing Company and Highbury Hall & Park.

08/09/2026

New Season, New Music! 🎵

🔗 Visit http://www.bcmg.org.uk for full details and tickets.

Contemporary music is made from the world around us: from the sounds of a city, from encounters between different cultures and traditions, and from composers responding to the questions and experiences of their own time.

This season, under the banner of 'B. CONTEMPORARY', BCMG brings those ideas together in performances, new commissions and collaborations in Birmingham, London and Dhaka.

We invite you to listen to Birmingham itself, contributing sounds from across the city to Sara Caneva's new Wayfinding B project. Our new Crossing Forward exchange introduces music created through international collaboration, while The Story of Maya travels from Birmingham to Bangladesh.

We welcome Kazuki Yamada to Town Hall for the world premiere of Dai Fujikura's Bassoon Concerto — a Sound Investment commission — and join forces with musicians from the Royal Academy of Music for a side-by-side project.

Made in Birmingham, performed worldwide 💫

04/09/2026

BCMG is looking for a full-time Head of Development on a permanent contract.

This role is all about:
🎵 Enabling the organisation to realise its overall artistic, commissioning, performance and learning programmes
📈 Leading the organisation’s fundraising, which focuses on public funding, charitable trusts, and major and individual donors
📝 Communications and marketing support for the organisation’s activities, including leading on CRM

If you have and the ability to translate artistic, learning and organisational ideas into clear and compelling applications and communications, then we’d love to hear from you!

📍 Based in Birmingham
💼 Full-time (35 hours per week) with occasional work outside normal hours
💷 £34,000–£40,000, depending on experience
⏰ Apply by 10am on Monday 28 September 2026

Head to https://www.bcmg.org.uk/job-vacancy-head-of-development for full details and how to apply

28/08/2026

Are you an experienced cyclist?

We’re on the lookout for volunteers to lead small groups of cyclists on a musical bike tour along Birmingham’s River Rea! Starting at Midlands Arts Centre on Sunday 20th September, ‘Cycle the Score’ combines active travel and contemporary music to create a concert like no other.

Follow the link below for more details:
https://www.bcmg.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=a7de630d-ecca-4f5e-9eb1-4b5b8681b125

27/08/2026

Join BCMG at Ikon Gallery for our second and final Upright Piano event. Pianist John Reid will deliver a 30-minute programme of György Kurtág, Haydn and C.P.E. Bach, all performed on Angela de la Cruz's innovative playable sculpture.

📍 Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
🕟 Friday 28 August at 2.30pm
🎫 Free entry with no need to book — just drop in!
🔗

Pianist John Reid activates Angela de la Cruz’s Upright Piano at Ikon Gallery. A rare chance to hear the sculpture as a playable instrument.

02/08/2026

Join BCMG as a part-time Finance Manager to lead finance operations at a small arts charity. Apply by Monday 24 August at 10am for this exciting role.

This is a hands-on role requiring an experienced finance professional who can work independently, maintain strong controls and provide useful support to colleagues and budget holders.

Recruitment pack and application details: https://www.bcmg.org.uk/job-vacancy-finance-manager