Record label NMC is launching an appeal to raise the £43,000 required to release three contemporary operas: Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Gawain, Judith Weir’s The Vanishing Bridegroom and Gerald Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Opera is the genre ‘which epitomises NMC’s unique role in promoting British composition at its most innovative,’ according to the label, as it is often the case that opera’s larger financial and artistic risks deter record labels from taking on such projects.

NMC is hoping to raise the funds from individual donors and from trusts or foundations with opera and contemporary music interests to enable the company to release the works in 2014/15 for its 25th anniversary.

Harrison Birtwistle’s Gawain was recorded live at the Royal Opera House under Elgar Howarth in 1994 by BBC Radio 3. Judith Weir’s The Vanishing Bridegroom is a BBC studio recording by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Singers conducted by Martyn Brabbins in 2008. Gerald Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest is a live BBC Radio 3 recording, performed at the Barbican by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group under Thomas Adès in 2012.

For full details of the 25th Anniversary Opera Appeal visit the NMC website.