- He was awarded the Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1988 Queen's Honours List for his services to music.
- Attended the Royal Manchester College of Music.
- Winner of the 2006 Ivor Novello Classical Music Award.
- He was awarded the Companion of Honour in the 2001 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to Music.
- Wiltshire, England (January 2010)
- His sons Adam and Silas Birtwistle are artists.
- Birtwistle's music is complex, written in a modernistic manner with a clear, distinctive voice, with sounds described as of "sonic brashness".
- At the 2006 Ivor Novello Awards he criticized pop musicians at the event for performing too loudly and using too many clichés.
- In 1952 he entered the Royal Manchester College of Music in Manchester on a clarinet scholarship. While there he came in contact with contemporaries including Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr, the pianist John Ogdon, and the trumpeter Elgar Howarth. He then completed two years of National Service in the Royal Artillery (Plymouth) Band, based in Oswestry.
- Birtwistle had a low media profile, but occasionally gave interviews. In 2019 he was interviewed for Composer of the Week on BBC Radio 3.
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