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,…
Neil Ferris and singers from Sonoro have recorded Janet’s setting of The Cosmic Pied Piper, a poem by Jenny Rowbory, in preparation for the online launch of Jenny’s book ‘We Are the Winter People’. The book contains Jenny’s collected poems and is published in aid of her campaign to fund vital life-saving treatment which she can only get in America. The launch event takes place tonight (September 8th 2021 at 7.30 GMT) linked here.
On September 11th 2021, Papagena will give the first performance of Janet’s commission Tomorrow is Today, a setting of words by Sarah Cattley. The piece, which includes music based on real birdcalls and an energetic dance greeting the dawn, will be performed as part of Papagena’s programme Still Moving at St Mary Magdalen Church in Oxford.
Following its publication in the first Multitude of Voyces anthology, Janet’s piece Alleluia, I Heard a Voice has been receiving numerous performances by many choirs throughout the UK, and further afield. This August, the Rodolfus Choral Course also chose the piece for its summer programme and performed it as an introit at King’s Chapel, Cambridge and Ely Cathedral.