New album coming in 2025! The Hermes Experiment is thrilled to announce the release of their third album, TREE, with Delphian Records in October 2025. The ensemble is incredibly grateful to everyone who supported their 2024 Kickstarter campaign as well as the Vaughan Williams Foundation, Francis Routh Trust, Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust and two private donors for their generous support. Full details of the new commissions, arrangements and original works featuring on the album will be announced soon.

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Winners of the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2021 and the Royal Over-Seas League Mixed Ensemble Competition 2019, The Hermes Experiment is one of the UK’s leading young contemporary music ensembles. Capitalising on their deliberately idiosyncratic combination of instruments (harp, clarinet, voice and double bass), The Hermes Experiment regularly commissions new works, as well as creating their own innovative arrangements and venturing into live free improvisation. They have commissioned over 60 composers at various stages of their careers. They have released two albums on Delphian Records – HERE WE ARE and SONG – both to critical acclaim. Their third album TREE will be released in October 2025, also on Delphian. 

Recent highlights include performances at Barbican Centre, Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Oxford International Song Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Tallinn Music Week, Rotterdam’s De Doelen, Spitalfields Festival and the RPS Awards. The Hermes Experiment were also one of the showcase artists the Classical NEXT Conference 2019.

The ensemble is dedicated to the value of contemporary music in education and community contexts. In 2021, they ran a Virtual Composition Project, supported by Arts Council England. They were ensemble in residence for the Young Music Makers of Dyfed 2018-19, and as part of their fifth birthday project they ran composition workshops in state schools in and around London. They regularly work with composition students from Trinity Laban, RAM, RCM, RWCMD, Leeds College of Music and Birmingham University.  In 2014-15, they took part in Wigmore Hall Learning’s schemes.

The ensemble also strives to create a platform for cross-disciplinary collaboration. In June 2015, they created a ‘musical exhibition’ with photographer Thurstan Redding, and in September 2016 during an Aldeburgh Music Residency, they developed a new interpretation of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. They also worked with poet Ali Lewis in 2016 & 2019, devising new pieces with him.

The quartet has received funding from Arts Council England, The Marchus Trust, Vaughan Williams Foundation, Hinrichsen Foundation, Britten-Pears Foundation, Future of Russia Foundation, Oleg Prokofiev Trust, Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust, PRS for Music Foundation, Help Musicians UK and Francis Routh Trust. For the 2023-26 seasons, The Hermes Experiment is extremely grateful to be generously supported by The Marchus Trust.

The Hermes Experiment repertoire list is available here.

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‘Britain’s music scene offers numerous dynamic small-sized groups, but The Hermes Experiment so spellbinding, so imaginative, continue to stand alone’ ★★★★ The Times

‘This British group have released a most enticing calling card, advertising the skills of individual musicians and the liveliness and variety of Britain’s composing scene’ ★★★★ The Times

‘Hermes are quite an act, boldly entertaining’ ★★★★★ The Scotsman

‘distinctive, witty, arresting songs (…) An imaginative first disc that mirrors our current musical landscape’ The Observer

“uniquely engaging ensemble” Andrew McGregor, Record Review, BBC Radio 3

“The performance was meticulously nuanced, witty and chic.” ★★★★ The Times

“This clever mix of instruments is more versatile than you might first think.” ★★★★ The Observer

“The combination of harp, clarinet, voice and double bass is not one you hear every day, but in the right hands it works brilliantly. The Hermes Experiment who sport this line-up have in a short few years commissioned prodigiously for it, opening a whole new expressive world” Evening Standard

“The Hermes Experiment last night were barmy but brilliant” Classical Music Magazine

“odd but great” The Wire

“The virtuosic skill of each member of the group was on display from the start (…) witty and engaging performance, leaving the listener constantly wondering what was coming next” London Jazz News

“It was an enormous pleasure to write for The Hermes Experiment, and to work with them: they are four immensely talented young musicians with bags of enthusiasm and energy, and an impressive commitment to the material they perform. I think they have a very bright future.” Giles Swayne