This concert features works unified by their connection to France and the influence of French music. The most evident association is in the two works by French composer Dominique Lemaitre, a composer whose music Hard Rain began to discover in last season’s programme. Toru Takemitsu’s music is steeped in the tradition of Debussy and Ravel amongst many other influences, but, as can be heard in Quadrain II, it is very closely associated with Olivier Messiaen with whom Takemitsu sought permission to use the instrumentation of the 'Quartet for the End of time'. The Greg Caffrey work included here, 'These are the clouds about the fallen sun', besides being written at the Cite International des Arts in Paris, has, in turn, a strong influence from the music of Takemitsu; both factors placing it firmly within the spear of influence of French music. Misato Moshizuki is another Japanese composer, who, like Takemitsu, combines Occidental tradition and, in her own words, “the Asiatic sense of breathing.” Her time spent at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris and immediately afterwards at IRCAM, when 'All that is including me' was written, were formative years. Finally, Claude Vivier has been described by Ligeti as “the finest French composer of his generation” either ignoring the fact that Vivier was French-Canadian or perhaps emphasising the strong threads, in particular Spectralism, that connected the composer to Europe, and especially Paris.