NMC partners with New Music Biennial 2025

2nd June 2025

News NMC Recordings

NMC is proud to be working in partnership with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, Southbank Centre, BBC Radio 3 and the PRS Foundation for this year’s New Music Biennial festival. The 2025 festival is supported by Arts Council England and will feature 20 brand new pieces of music selected through an open call, alongside pre-existing new pieces that have been premiered within the last four years.

Sinfonia Cymru image
Sinfonia Cymru, who will premiere a new concerto by Mark David Boden

The partnership will see performances from the free-to-attend, critically-acclaimed festival broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show, with NMC making the recordings available through all Digital Service Providers (including Apple Music and Spotify) following the festivals in Bradford and at the Southbank Centre.

NMC has been a partner since the festival launched in 2012 and provides a lasting legacy for this new music by making it available as digital releases worldwide. So far we have released over 70 pieces, and we can't wait to welcome many new names to our catalogue this year. You can view all previous New Music Biennial releases on NMC here.

Chisara Agor
Chisara Agor will present "Nocturnal Sun" at the festival

More details around the release date of the digital singles and album will be announced in due course. In the meantime, free tickets for the event are available now for Bradford (6-8 June) and Southbank Centre (4-6 July). See below for a complete list of the new works featured at this year's festival.

You can also explore our collection of New Music Biennial Spotify playlists, arranged into genres including Contemporary Classical, Choral/Vocal, Folk/World, Electronic/Experimental and Jazz.

PRS Foundation’s New Music Biennial is a critically-acclaimed free festival presenting 20 pieces of new music across two festival weekends, at Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture (6th – 8th June 2025) and London’s Southbank Centre (4th-6th July 2025), broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and available for download from NMC Recordings.

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The new works featured this year are:

"Dhamaal - Core"
Commissioned by Serious Trust written by the Indian-born British composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, Shri Sriram
Genre: Indian Classical / Jazz / Electronic 

"P E A C E”
Commissioned by manchester jazz festival, devised by sound artist and audio producer, Verity Watts as lead composer curating a team of four creatives/performers: Kenzo Jae, Scout Bolton, Dave Kane, DJ Woody. 
Genre: Jazz, Electronic

"Bantam’s Drift"
Commissioned by Brighter Sound, written by underground audiovisual artist and DJ m3UNTITLED, and experimental duo GOMID (Nigerian-British vocalist Iyunoluwanimi Yemi-Shodimu and British producer Samuel Scott) and supported by Opera North.
Genre: Sound Art / UK Bass

"Moth x Human"
Commissioned by Oxford Contemporary Music, written by violinist, composer and creative director Ellie Wilson, supported by UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)
Genre: Sound Art / Electro Acoustic / Environmental Music

“Mercury Songs”
Commissioned by Spitalfields Music, written by award-winning performer-composer Emily Levy and groundbreaking musician Matthew Bourne.
Genre: Contemporary / Experimental Folk

"Requiem"
Commissioned by Paraorchestra, written by Rylan Gleave (under the moniker All Men Unto Me).
Genre: Rock/Avant Garde

“Chasing Sunlight”
Commissioned by Sinfonia Cymru, written by award-winning British composer, music director and producer, Mark David Boden
Genre: Classical Contemporary

"GLOW"
Commissioned by Northern Ireland's premier new music group Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, and written by the innovative composer-pianist Xenia Pestova Bennett, who also joins the ensemble on stage.
Genre: Classical Contemporary

"Holocene"
Commissioned by Onyx Brass written by Irish composer and writer, Ailís Ní Ríain
Genre: Classical Contemporary

"In Conversation: N'dehou"
Commissioned by The Carice Singers, composed by acclaimed British composer, Daniel Kidane.
Genre: Classical / Choral 

“MARCH”
Commissioned by Contemporary Music for All (CoMA), written by Jerusalemite composer and theatre-maker Uri Agnon
Genre: Classical - Contemporary

"Ghost Weavers"
Commissioned by The Night With... written by Royal Philharmonic Society Prize-winning composer and singer Stef Conner
Genre: Classical Contemporary

"The Path"
Written by Halina Rice and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Bradford and BBC Concert Orchestra in London.
Genre: Orchestral

"Into the Night"
Written by Jasdeep Singh Degun and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Bradford and BBC Concert Orchestra in London.
Genre: Orchestral

"DANCE SUITE"
Written by Ivor Novello-nominated composer and curator Alex Groves. Hosted by PRXLUDES, a contemporary music magazine dedicated to celebrating emerging composers.
Genre: Classical Contemporary / Electronic

“Penumbra”
Commissioned by Outlands Network, written by vocalist Dali de Saint Paul, electronic composer and double bassist Maxwell Sterling, and visual artists Charlie Hope and Rebecca Salvadori.
Genre: Classical / Avant-garde

"Nocturnal Sun"
Commissioned by MSCTY, written by award winning composer and multidisciplinary artist, Chisara Agor.
Genre: Dance Classical / Global / Experimental

“Thar Farraige (Over Sea)”
Commissioned by Chamber Music Scotland, written by Irish art music composer and musician, Linda Buckley.
Genre: Folk / Contemporary / Traditional

“Voice Notes”
Presented by Another Sky Festival, written by the composer, sound artist and improviser, Hardi Kurda and the librettist, Sarah Jackson, with Compass Collective, Counterpoint Arts & New Writing North.
Genre: Global / Diasporic / Electroacoustic

Music Map

Discover more about the classical music of today with NMC's Music Map, and exciting and educational online tool which enables you to see and hear the connections between composers, their teachers, pupils, influences and their works.

Music Map