840 / NLCC: New Music for Choir

21 March 2026 at Stone Nest
doors 7.00pm / music 7:30pm

840 returns in collaboration with the New London Chamber Choir, one of Europe’s foremost vocal ensembles, renowned for their uncompromising approach and four decades of pioneering contemporary vocal work. Conducted by Jess Hoskins and presented in the intimate, atmospheric space of Stone Nest – the West End’s hidden sanctuary for experimental performance – the programme explores resonance, fragility and the collective intelligence of voices.

The evening features premieres by Lara Agar, Francesca Fargion, Louise Drewett and Howard Skempton.

Agar writes music for concert halls, installations, dance and film. Described as “crackling like static” (The Times), her work thrives in abstraction, embracing indeterminacy and vocality while allowing for messiness and quiet chaos.

Fargion’s music draws on humour, surreal naivety and “failure as an aesthetic”. She manipulates found text into delightfully off-kilter, playful and unpredictable forms, blending absurdity with simple, imaginative musical expression.

Drewett, “a talent with a very distinct sensibility” (The Telegraph), writes music shaped by her deep roots in community singing and collaboration, often integrating folk-inspired material and participatory elements into her choral language.

Skempton, a central figure in British experimental music, has influenced generations through his quietly radical clarity. His choral writing distils melody, harmony and time to their essence, offering a rare and significant contribution to contemporary vocal repertoire.

The programme also includes Andy Ingamells’ Song (in) Books, a playful exploration of performance, notation and the physicality of reading; Andrew Hamilton’s Everything is Ridiculous, with its hyperdirect, mantra-like insistence; and Morton Feldman’s Christian Wolff in Cambridge, where delicate harmonic shifts and suspended duration invite deep listening. A new work by 840 curator Alex Nikiporenko completes the programme.

Tickets are £20 standard / £10 reduced

The concert will take place at Stone Nest, 136 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1D 5EZ.

This concert has been made possible with generous support from The Hinrichsen Foundation.

Click here for the event poster