These three events are our top picks from the hotly-tipped FutureEverything Festival 2015 – not to be missed, friends.

2015 is a bit-hitter, with the return of Manchester International Festival, the reopening of the Whitworth and, of course, FutureEverything Festival. We particularly didn’t want you to miss out on tickets for some of the most hotly-tipped events coming up, though: FutureEverything present Ólafur Arnalds, Ariel Pink and the UK premiere of audio-visual performance The Well, all as part of their 20^th anniversary festival.

One of the most hotly-tipped events in 2015

As well a new film programme in the RNCM lecture theatre, an After Hours Hub and the annual FutureEverthing conference – featuring Julia Kaganskiy, Warren Ellis, Jer Thorp and more – 2015’s festival includes a performance by cross-genre Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds (26 Feb, 8.30pm. Tickets £20 adv). Presented by Hey! Manchester and FutureEverything and hosted at the RNCM, this promises to be a highlight event in the safe hands of Arnalds, who has created music both for the Hunger Games film trilogy and the TV series Broadchurch. Returning to Manchester is LA-based multi-instrumentalist and lo fi artist Ariel Pink: he brings a seven piece band on this visit, to perform new work from his latest LP pom pom (RNCM, 28 Feb, 8pm. Tickets £15).

Last, but not least, comes an event that blurs the boundaries between performance, light art and engineering: for The Well by visual artist Emmanuel Biard and electronic musician Koreless, a five piece male choir both sings and responds to a bespoke light installation (RNCM, 25 Feb, 8pm. Tickets £12). It’s a way of investigating scale, distance and where the audio and visual intersect in performance – and, essentially, it looks awesome. Approach early 2015 as you mean to go on; we’ll be diving feet first into a year of cultural goodness. Come on in, the water’s lovely.