Janet’s new setting for choir and harp of Edmund Sear’s words to the well-known carol It Came Upon the Midnight Clear will be premièred by Granta Chorale at All Saints Church Jesus Lane, Cambridge on 17th December 2022. The harp plays more than an accompanying role, with swooping glissandi, high sparkling flashes as well as dramatic arpeggios to support the choir’s shifting harmonies.
The chapel choir of Somerville College Oxford and conductor Will Dawes have brought out a new CD: The Dawn of Grace – music for Christmas, featuring an innovative and varied collection of twenty tracks by modern female composers. These include Janet’s Ding Dong Diggety! her jazzy arrangement combining Ding Dong Merrily on High with the Westminster chimes and vocal percussion. Listen to the collection and order the CD.
The 23-24th September sees the première of Janet’s latest choral work, a commissioned anthem for Requiem to Cancer – This Moment of Here and Now. Requiem to Cancer takes the form of a 24-hour Come and Sing in which participants sing four requiems interspersed with the specially composed anthem. Janet’s words explore different ways of focussing on the present moment and the benefits that flow from that. The music starts from the idea of breathing…
George Herbert’s poem Antiphon I is familiar in Vaughan Williams’ glorious setting from The Five Mystical Songs and as a hymn to the tune Luckington. Janet’s new setting for SATB and organ contrasts an energetic and rhythmically varied refrain with verses over a shifting ostinato. The première will be given by St Pancras Church Choir conducted by Christopher Batchelor at Evensong on May 14th as part of the 2022 London Festival of Contemporary Church Music…
Following JAM’s workshop in July 2021 on writing for brass or organ, Janet’s Film Noir for brass quintet was premièred by the wonderful Onyx Brass at St Bride’s Church Fleet Street in October 2021. At the end of the concert Janet was awarded the first President’s Commission to write a further piece for Onyx. The result was Up in the Morning Early – Variations on a Scots Song. The traditional song about a dislike of…