To celebrate our 20th anniversary last year we commissioned nearly 100 composers, ranging from the UK’s most highly regarded figures to the younger generation of emerging talents, to write a song loosely themed on ‘Britain’, and scored for single voice or duet and a range of accompanying instruments. The result is the critically acclaimed and imaginative NMC Songbook, a project that composer John Adams declared ‘confirms the robust health and endlessly varied landscape of Britain’s new music’ and which won the 2009 Classic FM Gramophone ‘Best Contemporary Release’ Award.

The songs set texts chosen by the composers and cover a vast array of subjects, from poems by Blake and Byron through to a list of the Kings and Queens of England, extracts from a National Trust brochure, chants from the Leyton Orient terraces, a whisky recipe, and a rant about road rage.