6 – 8 Jun 2025
New Music Biennial 2025
Fresh sounds from the UK’s most exciting composers.
We explored the cutting edge of contemporary music at this free weekender.
New Music Biennial was a three-day festival celebrating the best new music across all genres from the country’s most exciting composers – and in 2025, for the first time, it came to venues around Bradford.
From Bradford Cathedral to The Underground, the Biennial took over venues across the city centre for three days and nights of performances showcasing 20 pieces of new music – with all shows absolutely free. Along with live performances of outstanding contemporary works, many performed in Bradford for the first time, there were world premieres of brand new commissions. The works go on to be performed at London’s Southbank Centre, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and released by NMC Recordings – but Bradford heard them first.
The programme
6 Jun 2025
Chasing Sunlight
Sinfonia Cymru
An engaging new 'audio-visual concerto' harnessing the power of the senses.
6 Jun 2025
Penumbra
Outlands Network
6.15pm: Loading Bay
Explore how this musical collaboration combines, voice, video, lighting and looping in their performance.
6 Jun 2025
N’dehou
Daniel Kidane and The Carice Singers
Composer Daniel Kidane premiered a choral work, performed by The Carice Singers
6 Jun 2025
Bantam’s Drift
Brighter Sound
Deconstructed soundscapes and images inspired by Bradford’s South Asian youth culture.
7 Jun 2025
Moth x Human
Ellie Wilson
A unique cross-species collaboration, where sonified moth activity was transformed into sound to spotlight the UK's declining biodiversity.
7 Jun 2025
Into the Night
Jasdeep Singh Degun & BBC Concert Orchestra
7 Jun 2025
Ghost Weavers
The Night With...
1.30pm: Loading Bay
Immerse yourself in a multilayered sound experience infused with folk song
7 Jun 2025
The Path
Halina Rice
3pm: St George's Hall
Walk a new trail with electronic music artist Halina Rice in this exciting new collaboration with the BBC Concert Orchestra.
7 Jun 2025
Holocene
Ailís Ní Ríain, Onyx Brass and Hammonds Band
A reimagining of the contemporary brass ensemble with a bold and unconventional work exploring our current geological epoch.
7 Jun 2025
Requiem
All Men Unto Me
6pm: Loading Bay
Enjoy an electrifying live performance of three tracks from All Men Unto Me’s new album.
7 Jun 2025
Yearn
Sipho
7.30pm: St George's Hall
Yearn: to have an intense feeling of longing for something, typically something that one has lost or been separated from.
7 Jun 2025
DANCE SUITE
Alex Groves and Zubin Kanga
Baroque music as it would sound on today’s dance floor.
8 Jun 2025
Nocturnal Sun
Chisara Agor
This live performance and conceptual film will took audiences on a journey across an arid landscape.
8 Jun 2025
MARCH
Contemporary Music for All: CoMA
12pm: St Georges Hall
Immerse yourself in this powerful, joyful performance and think deeper about the many forms of protest.
8 Jun 2025
Thar Farraige (Over Sea)
Linda Buckley
Chamber and folk music combined in a moving meditation on love, loss and home
8 Jun 2025
Mercury Songs
Emily Levy and Matthew Bourne
An experimental piece by a five-piece ensemble that recast British folk traditions for today
8 Jun 2025
