Sussex composers have been given a grant by The Arts Council towards creating a new electro-acoustic work.

The project will enable members of New Music Brighton, almost half of whom are aged over 50, to explore the electronic medium.

Ric Graebner, an experienced composer of electronic music and a member of New Music Brighton, said: "This funding will encourage older composers in particular to engage with a new music technology that has become increasingly user-friendly and flexible.

"Apart from providing technical instruction for those new to such things, an aim of the project is to show that software has now developed to the point where artistic goals can be driven by the imagination rather than by what is technically convenient."

Members will be collaborating to create a new work, Colour Variations, which will be premiered at New Music Brighton's concert during the Brighton Festival, in St Paul's Church, West Street, on May 14.

It will be scored for live instruments and soprano with live electronic processing and pre-recorded electronic sounds. Performers will include members of the Brighton and Hove-based Tacet Ensemble and some of the composers themselves.

New Music Brighton chairman Patrick Harrex said: "This funding will help us, as composers, to broaden our understanding of the sound world that electronics open up to us."

He refused to reveal how much the grant was worth but described it as a "substantial four-figure sum".