Biography
Lara Agar is a London-based, Suffolk-raised composer from the UK, whose music blends electronic soundscapes and sampled material with traditional acoustic and classical instruments.
Her music is most at home in abstraction, using indeterminacy, vocality and electronics to create imaginary sound worlds. She has worked with several artists and musicians forming close and ongoing collaborative relationships across dance, visual arts and film. Taking a homegrown and intuitive approach, Lara’s interests lie in the accidental, the found, messiness of stuff, experimental music making, going with mistakes, (Beckett - “Fail again, fail better”), not knowing…
Selected performers and collaborators who have played Lara’s music include the London Symphony Orchestra, Explore Ensemble, Juliet Fraser + Mark Knoop, Orkest de Ereprijs, Exaudi, the Plus-Minus Ensemble, Quatuor Bozzini, the National Youth String Orchestra, Waste Paper Opera Company, Satoko Inoue and the Quatuor Danel.
Her music has been played in venues such as the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican, Milton Court, Sadler’s Wells, Iklectik, and many more DIY and grassroots venues throughout the UK and Europe. Festivals and concert series include Music We’d Like to Hear (London), Oxford Leider (Oxford), Festival of Laurence Crane (London), New Music Northwest (Manchester) and the Freedom of Movement Festival (London).
Lara is a frequent collaborator in cross discipline art, most notably dance, and has worked with choreographer Anthony Matsena, including on Shades of Blue (commissioned by Dance East and Sadler's Wells) which received four star reviews from both the Guardian and the Financial Times, and features in the BAFTA winning BBC4 Documentary 'Brothers in Dance'. Her music for Codi with the National Dance Company of Wales was described as the "chief jewel that shines on the overall crown" (Owen J. Lewis).
Lara is a guest artist at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where she works as a tutor on the Unfinished postgraduate module, curated by Nell Catchpole & Jan Hendrickse. Lara is also the artistic director for the Tantrum Experimental Music Series, a concert series for raw and unfinished contemporary music making, with recent artists including Wojiech Rusin, Anat Ben-David, Eve Stainton & Lola de la Mata.
Lara held a Junior Fellowship (2019/20) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, following her artist master’s degree in Composition as a Leverhulme Arts Scholar with Paul Newland, Cassandra Miller and Laurence Crane. Her studies were generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the Guildhall Trust.
Upcoming commissions for 2024 are with the London Symphony Orchestra, Explore Ensemble, Ben Smith, Cara Dawson and a new album release with composer Louis D’heudieres & tour in Germany.
Lara released her debut EP Solstice with October House Records in October 2023, and was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award in 2022 for This Unquiet Autumn.
Her music is most at home in abstraction, using indeterminacy, vocality and electronics to create imaginary sound worlds. She has worked with several artists and musicians forming close and ongoing collaborative relationships across dance, visual arts and film. Taking a homegrown and intuitive approach, Lara’s interests lie in the accidental, the found, messiness of stuff, experimental music making, going with mistakes, (Beckett - “Fail again, fail better”), not knowing…
Selected performers and collaborators who have played Lara’s music include the London Symphony Orchestra, Explore Ensemble, Juliet Fraser + Mark Knoop, Orkest de Ereprijs, Exaudi, the Plus-Minus Ensemble, Quatuor Bozzini, the National Youth String Orchestra, Waste Paper Opera Company, Satoko Inoue and the Quatuor Danel.
Her music has been played in venues such as the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican, Milton Court, Sadler’s Wells, Iklectik, and many more DIY and grassroots venues throughout the UK and Europe. Festivals and concert series include Music We’d Like to Hear (London), Oxford Leider (Oxford), Festival of Laurence Crane (London), New Music Northwest (Manchester) and the Freedom of Movement Festival (London).
Lara is a frequent collaborator in cross discipline art, most notably dance, and has worked with choreographer Anthony Matsena, including on Shades of Blue (commissioned by Dance East and Sadler's Wells) which received four star reviews from both the Guardian and the Financial Times, and features in the BAFTA winning BBC4 Documentary 'Brothers in Dance'. Her music for Codi with the National Dance Company of Wales was described as the "chief jewel that shines on the overall crown" (Owen J. Lewis).
Lara is a guest artist at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where she works as a tutor on the Unfinished postgraduate module, curated by Nell Catchpole & Jan Hendrickse. Lara is also the artistic director for the Tantrum Experimental Music Series, a concert series for raw and unfinished contemporary music making, with recent artists including Wojiech Rusin, Anat Ben-David, Eve Stainton & Lola de la Mata.
Lara held a Junior Fellowship (2019/20) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, following her artist master’s degree in Composition as a Leverhulme Arts Scholar with Paul Newland, Cassandra Miller and Laurence Crane. Her studies were generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the Guildhall Trust.
Upcoming commissions for 2024 are with the London Symphony Orchestra, Explore Ensemble, Ben Smith, Cara Dawson and a new album release with composer Louis D’heudieres & tour in Germany.
Lara released her debut EP Solstice with October House Records in October 2023, and was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award in 2022 for This Unquiet Autumn.