Biography
Lara’s work is rooted in contemporary classical and experimental music making, writing for acoustic instruments and often blending electronics, found sounds and sampling. Taking a homegrown and intuitive approach, Lara’s interests lie in the accidental, the found, indeterminacy, messiness of stuff, experimental and collaborative 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 and 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), 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 nominated 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).
She was awarded the Junior Fellowship (2019/2020) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she studied her postgraduate 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.
Lara’s debut EP Solstice is coming out on October House Records in October 2023.
Lara was nominated for an Ivor Novello award in 2022 for her work This Unquiet Autumn, commissioned by soprano Juliet Fraser.