A new album by Papagena includes Tomorrow is Today as its title track. Janet wrote this for the group in 2021, setting a text by Sarah Cattley which likens each new dawn to the new life of a chick emerging from its egg. The music incorporates layered birdsong effects to create a dawn chorus. This is interspersed with more rhythmic and energetic, dance-like music full of the excitement of a new morning and new life.…
The Choir from the Rodolfus Choral Course sang Janet’s Beati Quorum Via (Homage to Stanford) alongside its Stanford inspiration in their evensong from the Chapel of Royal Holloway. This was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Choral Evensong on Wednesday August 14th (repeat – Sunday August 18th).
Janet was invited by Britten Sinfonia to take part in the 2023 Opus 1 scheme in which eight composers work with a Britten Sinfonia chamber ensemble over a series of workshops. This was a brilliant opportunity to write for a really unusual ensemble and to receive feedback from the players and mentoring from Dani Howard and Raymond Yiu along the way. It was also great hearing the other composers’ responses to their instrumental line-up. The…
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.
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.