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.…
Birds of Paradise première Edinburgh’s Cadenza Choir commissioned Janet to compose a retirement gift for Jenny Sumerling, who directed the choir for 22 years. With new conductor Tim Coleman, the choir premièred Janet’s setting of Christina Rossetti’s ‘Birds of Paradise’ at Greyfriars Kirk on August 24th in their Edinburgh Fringe Festival concert. The music features aleatoric birdcalls from upper voices layered against a full SATB texture. The organ loft in Greyfriars Kirk made the ideal…