In the 400th anniversary year of Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, Janet was commissioned to write a setting of John Donne for the Chapel Choir to perform with Hackney Choral. She chose part of Donne’s prayer before his sermon for the dedication of the chapel in 1623 and combined this with some Latin quotations from St Bernard taken from the sermon itself, together with Donne’s own elaborated translations. The resulting anthem Be This Thine Ark likens the…
To mark Christopher Batchelor’s inspirational twenty years leadership of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, Alastair Carey has curated a special celebration concert to open LFCCM 2023. Recently commissioned composers have been invited to contribute, with a whole team of composers writing different sections of a collaborative Mass setting Missa Brevis pro Baccalarius. Janet has composed the final section of the Gloria. The work is to be premièred on May 12th at St Pancras…
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…