Janet found immediate inspiration in December 2020 when she read The Cosmic Pied Piper, a poem by Jenny Rowbory. Jenny’s poetry is partially a response to her debilitating condition, which has kept her bed-bound for over sixteen years. Janet’s a cappella setting for mixed choir – featuring two solo soprano parts and mysterious choral whispering – seemed to arise effortlessly from the atmospheric poem. All proceeds from the piece will go towards Jenny’s GoFundMe campaign,
Recording of The Christmas Life
Category: Commission, Recording
In December 2020, Choros the Oxford-based semi-professional chamber choir conducted by Janet Lincé, launched their new CD: A Sense of Advent. It includes Janet’s carol The Christmas Life. Like many other carols on the CD, this had been a commission from Choros, a choir which deserves praise for championing new music so actively. The Christmas Life is Janet’s setting of a poem by Wendy Cope, describing the excitement of welcoming Christmas into our homes. From
Approached by Sarah MacDonald before a recording session with soprano Charlie Pemberton at Newnham College, Janet and her daughter, fellow MazeMusic composer Sarah Cattley both wrote a new song for the programme. Like Janet, Sarah is a Newnham alumna, and she chose to set verses by Newnham poet Fredegond Shove. Janet set words by Khalil Gibran, ‘Said a Blade of Grass’. The video of the new works will feature in the 2020 Alumni weekend.
Janet’s online rehearsals during lockdown have been enthusiastically received by singers in her choirs. Of course these rehearsals bring inevitable frustrations for singers and conductors. The joys and benefits of actual choral singing over virtual choirs were the starting point for Janet’s new ‘pop song’ Singing in a Choir. Granta Chorale member Emma Hall had suggested Janet compose a new piece and Emma then produced the video, while Janet’s nephew Robin Wheeler mixed and produced
Janet’s anthem was nominated to take part in the Twitter World Cup of Evensong Anthems and made it through the first vote into the final 64 of of competition. Head to head with Purcell’s Jehova, Quam Multi Sunt Hostes Mei it managed 37.5% of the vote but went out to the well-known piece.