Conceived as part of the MOOT contemporary music education group’s Music For Curious Minds series for the Brighton Science Festival, this first night featured three performances along the theme of war and (very tenuously) technology’s role in it.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 - written to celebrate the sacrifice of Austro-Bavarian soldiers in the Napoleonic era Battle of Hanau - was performed with all the essential passion and complexity by a near-perfect University Of Sussex Symphony Orchestra. Offering a rousing opening act, the piece’s four movements sounded stunning in this beautiful venue.

Slightly less satisfying was Ed Hughes’ Night Music, a new commission combining electronics, classical instruments, vintage war footage and recollections from 90 year-old RAF veteran Reg Payne.

Featuring the modern classical staple of glitchy, yet oddly samey, electronic beats (clumsily hammering home the intended tech link), this meditation on Second World War’s bombing raids was elevated by Joseph Houston’s elegantly askew piano work.

New Mexico composer Stephen Montague’s Dark Sun was a calamitous tribute to the victims of Hiroshima. This difficult piece was brought to life brilliantly, complete with moving choral arrangements and atmospheric funereal organ, making for a gloriously discordant and boldly cinematic climax to an already impressive night.