Sir Harrison Birtwistle fully deserved the Honorary Doctorate conferred on him by Birmingham City University to mark his 80th birthday.

What he didn’t deserve was the rag tag and bobtail appearance of some of the Conservatoire platform-party dignitaries, embarrassedly sporting their pseudo-medieval robes over sloppy tee-shirts, jeans and trainers.

The thing should either have been done properly or not at all.

That unfortunate episode aside, this was a heartening evening, the remarkable student-led Thallein Ensemble proving once again how adept these Conservatoire students are in rehearsing and presenting contemporary music at the most demanding level.

The group has been constantly evolving since its foundation decades ago by Darmstad summer school-trained undergraduates, and it is always a privilege to hear them in performance.

We heard two student works, Blanka Barbara Stachelek’s Secret City a Kafkasque montage of spiky woodwind and roaring brass, Yfat Soul Zisso’s Equilibrium beginning bravely confrontationally but soon resorting to well-known instrumental stereotypes, but the chief meat of the evening was music by Birtwistle himself.

Carmen Arcadiae Mecanicae Perpetuum, bouncy and bubbly, was well-paced under Richard Baker’s clear and encouraging baton, and Panic, a brilliant vehicle for heroic saxophonist Benjamin Hill and so-cool drum-kitter Nathan England-Jones, brought a triumphant conclusion, however earsplittingly strident its decibel-levels.

But several items were left in the hands of the students themselves.

Cortege, an exercise in platform seat-hopping with a searing duet between horn and oboe as its climax, was smoothly choreographed under the discreet bass-drumming of Shih-Han Lee (but nul points for the hagiographic unedited programme-note), Cortege 3 for solo cor anglais and bassoon evoking the opening of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and, most touching of all, the sweetly innocent medieval Cradle Song, gloriously delivered by the Via Nova Chamber Choir – but who was the gentle conductor?