BIOGRAPHY  Laura Cannell – Performer/Composer/Improviser/Producer

Quick Biography 2025

Laura Cannell is an internationally acclaimed composer/performer whose music straddles the worlds of contemporary and ancient music. In August 2024 she released ‘The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined’, in 2025 ‘LYRELYRELYRE’ using a replica of the 7th century Sutton Hoo Lyre buried in the Suffolk King’s ship burial and her 12th solo album ‘The Visible Light of Other Worlds’ (Sept 2025) all appeared in the Official UK Album Download Charts. 

Laura is regularly broadcast on the BBC, including BBC Radio 3, 4, 6Music. She has recorded a Maida Vale session, was commissioned to re-work music by William Byrd for Radio 3. 

She recently appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the 12th Century composer Hildegard of Bingen. 

Collaborators include: writer/comedian Stewart Lee and the cellist Lori Goldston (Earth/Nirvana), Mira Calix and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Performances include: King’s Place, The British Library, Cafe Oto, The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Norfolk and Norwich Festival (Artist in Residence 2024).

Queen Elizabeth Hall, The Barbican, Unsound Festival Poland, Flow – Helsinki and more. Her music has appeared in Paris and London Fashion Weeks, and internationally on film & television.

She played/composed on the Folk Horror film HARVEST (2024) (premiered at Venice Biennale, New York and London Film Festivals) and co-composed the soundtrack to Amazon Audible’s ‘The Woman in Black’ which was nominated for an ARIA award for best Audio book (2023). 

Longer Biography 

Straddling the worlds of experimental, folk, chamber, early & medieval music, performer/composer Laura Cannell is a unique and important artist whose original and singular vision sets her apart from her contemporaries, whilst her music exists as a culturally vital exploration of the link between medieval, traditional and modern musical idioms.

As founder of the independent record label Brawl Records and creator/curator of the Modern Ritual performance series, Laura has built an impressive and nurturing platform for the release and performance of music that sits outside of the contemporary mainstream.

Now based in rural East Anglia, Laura’s semi-composed, semi-improvised compositions draw on the emotional influences of the landscape and explore the spaces between early and experimental music that is rooted in but not tethered to the past, but rather forges a new space for her minimalist chamber music.

Laura has released five albums since 2014, successfully carving out a unique path with her work, receiving critical acclaim from the contemporary music press and regularly being included in numerous Album of the Year lists (including The Guardian, MOJO, BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, The Wire and The Quietus).

Laura first came to prominence with her debut album, the semi-improvised “Quick Sparrows Over The Black Earth” (2014). Recorded in single takes in a small medieval church in rural South Norfolk, UK, the album was inspired by the surrounding Norfolk marshes and broads; this was followed a year later by “Beneath Swooping Talons” (2015), a beautiful suite recorded with deconstructed bow and of double recorder that encompasses both wild animal calls and long forgotten liturgical chords.

Laura’s next album was 2016’s “Simultaneous Flight Movement” which was recorded live, in one take inside Southwold Lighthouse in Suffolk and moved away from formal structures to re-imagine a sonic landscape unrestricted by time or origin. 2017’s “Hunter Huntress Hawker” again recorded live in single takes and largely improvised, this time in the semi-ruined church of Covehithe which sits on a fast eroding cliff on the Suffolk Coast.

Laura’s fifth album is “The Sky Untuned” (2019) which represents a new musical phase for the composer & performer, moving away from the adoption of music from the past by embracing a completely untethered exploration of new spaces for her music.

Laura’s style has evolved out of long self-taught sessions alongside dedicated training as well as employing her very open approach to join the dots with contemporary music makers. Laura studied the recorder at London College of Music graduating with 1st class honours in Performance. She also has a Masters in Performance Studies.

Recent projects include creating music for film, broadcast work for BBC Radio 3, “Reckonings” (2018) a collaborative album with Andre Bosman, tours with the cellist Lori Goldston (Earth, Nirvana) & collaborations with This Heat drummer Charles Hayward & Mira Calix, as well as commissions for Hampton Court Palace, The Immix Ensemble, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & The Zuckerman Museum of Contemporary Art (US).

Laura Cannell gratefully acknowledges support from PRS for Music Foundation
Laura Cannell is supported by PRS Foundation’s Women Make Music

Laura Cannell gratefully acknowledges the support of The Arts Council of England – Developing Your Creative Practice 2018-19

The Re: Chord Air Project and Modern Ritual projects gratefully acknowledges the support of the Arts Council of England National Lottery Funding.