Two Panufnik Composers Awarded Commissions

We are excited to announce the two composers who have been awarded commissions through the LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme. Lara Agar and Rafael Marino Arcaro will compose a new five- and ten-minute piece respectively for the full London Symphony Orchestra. The pieces will be workshopped through the Scheme with the LSO and François-Xavier Roth, before being premiered in concert at the Barbican in the 2024/25 Season.

For Lara and Rafael this award comes following their involvement on the LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme 2022/23, a supported opportunity for six composers to write for a full symphony orchestra. Participants received guidance from Colin Matthews, Christian Mason and Errollyn Wallen to write a three-minute piece, which was rehearsed and workshopped at LSO St Luke’s in March 2023. Lara and Rafael were selected to further develop their pieces, or compose something new, and will continue to be supported through the Scheme in the coming year.

I feel incredibly lucky to be writing for the LSO, they were a dream to work with in the workshop and it’s amazing to have the opportunity to expand on what we did there.

Lara Agar is a London-based, Suffolk-raised composer from the UK. 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. Recent commissions have been from Juliet Fraser (part of The Carson Commissions), Matsena Productions for Shades of Blue at Sadler’s Wells (previously on BBC ARTS Dancing Nation) and Codi, for the National Dance Company of Wales.

She has worked with artists such as Louis D’heudieres and Lola de la Mata, Mark Knoop, Quatuor Bozzini, EXAUDI and the PlusMinus Ensemble in venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Milton Court and Iklectik. 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. Lara was nominated for an Ivor Novello award in 2022.

With every new performance of my music, I learn to value true musicianship and technical mastery more. A composer alone does not produce music; a composer alone is just silence. Writing a new work for the LSO is like being given an endless canvas and the richest colours to work with.

Rafael Marino Arcaro is a Brazilian composer based in London. In his work, he hunts for music that brings an original insight into Brazilian artistic identity and musical temperament. He composes in sharply-defined aesthetic ideas and musical materials striving for clarity and restraint.

Recently, Marino Arcaro’s Op 15 for orchestra has been performed in Sala São Paulo at the closing concert of South America’s largest music festival. And in 2022, Rafael premiered his violin concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also currently working toward his PhD at King’s College London under the mentorship of Sir George Benjamin.

In 2023/24, Rafael’s premieres include: a guitar and cello piece for Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Plínio Fernandes at Wigmore Hall; a chamber work for dectet – funded by the Vaughn Williams Foundation; a large-scale solo guitar piece commissioned by Fábio Zanon; and a sonata for cello and piano at the Brazilian Embassy in London.

The LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme was devised by the Orchestra in association with Lady Panufnik, in memory of her late husband, the composer Sir Andrzej Panufnik, and generously supported by Lady Hamlyn and The Helen Hamlyn Trust.