New Complexity is a label principally applied to composers seeking a "complex, multi-layered interplay of evolutionary processes occurring simultaneously within every dimension of the musical material". Origins Though often atonal, highly abstract, and dissonant in sound, New Complexity music is most readily characterized by the use of techniques which require complex musical notation. This includes extended techniques, complex and often unstable textures, microtonality, highly disjunct melodic contour, complex layered rhythms, abrupt changes in texture, and so on. It is also characterized, in contrast to the music of the immediate post–World War II serialists, by the frequent reliance of its composers on poetic conceptions, very often implied in the titles of individual works and work-cycles. The origin of the name New Complexity is uncertain; amongst the candidates suggested for having coined it are the composer Nigel Osborne, the Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich, and the British-Australian musicologist Richard Toop, who gave currency to the concept of a movement with his article "Four Facets of the New Complexity"; Toop's article emphasizes the individuality of four composers (Richard Barrett, Chris Dench, James Dillon, and Michael Finnissy), both in terms of their working methods and the sound of their compositions, and demonstrates that they did not constitute a unified "school of thought". In the UK, particularly at the instigation of ensembles Suoraan and later Ensemble Exposé, works by "New Complexity" composers were for some time frequently programmed together with then unfashionable non-UK composers including Xenakis and Feldman, but also such diverse figures as Clarence Barlow, Hans-Joachim Hespos, and Heinz Holliger. Although the British influence, via the teaching efforts of Brian Ferneyhough and Michael Finnissy, was decisive in the origins of this movement, initial support came not from British institutions but rather from performers and promoters of new music in continental Europe, particularly at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse where Ferneyhough coordinated the composition courses from 1984 to 1992. Ferneyhough's Etudes Transcendantales, a song cycle for soprano and chamber ensemble, demonstrates many traits found in New Complexity music. In addition to being generally difficult to learn and perform, the pitch vocabulary makes heavy use of microtones—in this case, equal-tempered quarter tones. It also contains many tuplets of unusual ratios which are nested in multiple layers. Rapid changes, sometimes from note to note, happen in dynamics, articulation, and playing technique, including techniques such as multiphonics on the oboe, glottal stops for the voice, and key-clicking for the flute. According