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…
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 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…
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…
The Measure of a Tree is Janet’s new choral and orchestral piece written for Saffron Walden Choral Society who will give the premiere in Saffron Hall on March 19th 2022. The 30-minute piece explores the pivotal role of trees for all life on earth. It includes settings of poems by Ursula Vaughan Williams, Wendell Berry and Robert Macfarlane as well as texts by the composer, sometimes writing individually and sometimes jointly. One of the poems,…