• commissioned by pianist Margaret Fingerhut with funds from the Dangoor Foundation
• draws from Iraqi Jewish chant and is in memory of the 200,000 Iraqi Jews who had to flee Iraq in the 1950s
• world premiere 20.07.22, at Ryedale Festival
• buy here
• approx 10 mins

• orchestrations of 3 songs by Alma Mahler: Hymne, Ansturm and Hymen an die Nacht
• commissioned by the BBC for BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Valentina Peleggi
• approx 14 mins
• perusal score here
• world premiere 29th January 2022 with Richmond Symphony Orchestra (Virginia), conducted by Valentina Peleggi at Dominions Energy Centre, Richmond, Virginia
• UK premiere 15th February 2024 with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ludovic Morlot at Glasgow City Halls, Scotland
• "...She doesn’t hold back, applying harsher layers of sound to climactic points than you might expect, given the golden sumptuousness of Alma’s expressive style, but Panufnik does offer so much in the way of imaginative colour – from hazy atmospherics to busily entwined melodic tapestries – that there is an unceasing sense of genuine discovery. Morlot took that in hand and moulded a sequence that was both thrilling and reflective." Voxcarnyx.com

• commissioned by Matilda Lloyd for forthcoming album
• inspired by Christina Rossett's poem of hte same title
• approx. 4 mins

• commissioned by Dr Bernie Sherlock and the Dublin Voices
• setting of 'The Poet Pleads with the Elemental Powers
• world premiere 9th November, 2024, Dublin
• approx 4 mins
• buy here

• setting of 19th century Sufi Muslim scholar Nana Asma'u's 'Elegy for my niece, Fadima' translated by Jean Boyd & Beverly Mack
• passionate cri de coure using Hausa chant (the closest to what we can imagine was Nana Asma'u's soundworld)
• commissioned by The Exultate Singers for performance at St George's Church, Bristol on 01.10.23
• approx. 7 mins
• buy here

• commissioned by London International Early Music Festival for Jane Chapman
• Fantasy on Byrd's arrangement of Dowland's Pavana Lachrymae
• world premiere 09.09.23 Blackheath Halls, London
• approx. 9 mins
• buy here

"The evening’s pièce de résistance was a LIFEM commission: Roxanna Panufnik’s Tears, no more. Taking Byrd’s arrangement of Dowland’s Flow, my tears and running with it, Panufnik spices up the drooping opening theme with pungent Hindustani modes (themselves a tribute to Chapman’s pioneering recordings of transcriptions of Indian vocal music for harpsichord). A virtuoso performance brought us bang up to date. Kooky, just a bit, but a work full of wit, skill and enchantment." Clive Paget, The Guardian

Arrangement of beautiful traditional Ukrainian lullaby-style carol

recorded in special version for Ukrainian soprano, gospel choir & Afghan table player: listen

all Roxanna's performance royalties and sales will continue to go to The Refugee Council

sheet music here

approx. 3'30 mins

buy here

Songs from Garsington Opera commissioned 'Dalia' (libretto: Jessica Duchen), about a Syrian refugee who is fostered in the UK and becomes a National Youth Cricket champion.

suite commissioned by Amwaj Choir, Palestine, to be premiered around France February 2023

approx 25 mins

song cycle co-commissioned by Presteigne and Oxford Lieder Festivals

• setting of 4 poems (representing paintings) by Jessica Duchen, interlinked with recitative, as soprano is wandering around an art gallery
• WP 26.08.23 with Zoe Drummond & Chris Hopkins at Presteigne Festival, then English premiere 27.10.23 with Mary Bevan and Anna TiIbrook at Oxford Lieder Festival
• Read Opera Today review here
• Approx 18 mins
• buy here

"These vivid settings of Jessica Duchen's resonant poetry represented a perfect symbiosis between two creative artists. Switching between past and present and illusion and reality, the musical lines added layers of meaning, creating often tangled, divergent moods, ranging from inquisitive and reckless to wistful."

Musical Opinion Quarterly

Commissioned by King Charles III for his Coronation 6th May, 2023

• Words from the 1662 common book of prayer Coronation Eucharist
• orchestration commissioned by Marin Alsop and the Washington Choral Arts Society. World Premiere at the Last Night of the Proms (09.09.23) with Marin Alsop conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, US Premiere (08.11.23) in Washington by the commissioners at the John F Kennedy Center.
• listen & watch here
• score digital download here
• approx 2 mins
• buy here

"The chorus made easy sounding of its shifting celestial harmonies (including a high C that Panufnik once tweeted was “entirely optional, I promise!”), and Alsop masterfully built its momentum to a sudden bluff of near silence (but for the tail end of a tubular bell). It was a remarkable four minutes — confirmation that Panufnik is one of the most compelling choral composers of our time." Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post

• commissioned by Southbank Sinfonia for their 20th anniversary
• high octane showcase for all instruments
• world premiere St John's Smith Square, 13th October 2022
• approx. 5'
• hire here

• commissioned by West Cork International Chamber Festival
• based on a centuries-old Afghan mythical tale
• uses traditional Afghan musical elements
• to be premiered Summer 2023
• approx 14'
• buy here

• commissioned by Bath Abbey for the 25th anniversary of their Abbey Girls' Choir
• setting of words by St Clare of Assisi, translated by Carmen Acevedo Butcher
• extolls the virtue of looking in a mirror and seeing the most important qualities every human being should have, most of all “indescribable kindness” not just to others, but to yourself
• watch/listen here
• duration approx 5 mins

• commissioned by Southwell Minster to celebrate the restoration of their sculpted leaves
• setting of George Herbert's 'Heaven' with a chorus of the word 'leaves' in 18 different languages
• premiered 15.05.22 at Southwell Minster
• duration approx 5'30"
• buy here

• commissioned by Margaret Fingerhut, with funds from Dangoor Education
• based on an Iraqi Jewish song 'D'ror Yiqra' and in memory of this community who had to flee Iraq a generation ago
• sheet music here
• world premiere at Ryedale Festival, 20.07.22
• lasts approx 9'
• buy here

"In its barely ten minutes, Babylonia conveys an immense range of emotion. Fingerhut caught the work’s bittersweetness superbly. It was a memorable premiere." Martin Dreyer, CharlesHutchPress.co.uk

• commissioned by City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for their children and youth choirs
• arrangement and dramatic expansion of Andrzej Panufnik's "Five Polish Peasant Songs"
• approx 12 mins
• premiere 08.03.23
• "...vividly delivered by CBSO Youth and Children’s Chorus (in English). Setting the text for children’s voices only added to the macabre quality of the text, the sometimes disorientating harmonies and the effectively eerie orchestration. The five songs, whose composition dates back to the 1940s, each have roots in different places in Poland — so remind me never to go to Olkusz, the source of the ditty about the father with three unmarried daughters. As the Children’s Chorus gaily told the story (complete with mime), only two suitors turned up, so Daddy simply carves up the third girl with his sword." Neil Fisher, The Times
• hire here

• commissioned by Rundfunkchor Berlin to celebrate Beethoven anniversary 2020
• words by Beethoven and Jessica Duchen
• premiering 29th May, 2022 at the Philharmonie Berlin with choirs from (Covid-willing...) Germany, Belarus, Brazil, Sweden, Philippines, USA, Lebanon, South Africa, Singapore and Belgium.
• hire here

• "People's Opera" commissioned by Garsington Opera, for mixed professional and amateur singers and orchestra
• libretto by Jessica Duchen, about a young Syrian refugee who, having been fostered in the UK finds happiness and acceptance by becoming a National Youth Cricket Champion
• watch Creating Dalia here
• premiere 28th, 30th and 31st July 2022
• approx 75 minutes

• commissioned by the European Concert Halls Association for Peter Moore
• "song without words" based on Pablo Neruda's "La Reina" (The Queen)
• premiered at LSO St Lukes, London
• approx 8 mins
• buy here

• commissioned by the StiftFestival and Groot Omroepkoor (Netherland’s Radio Choir) for their Chief Conductor Benjamin Goodsons' inaugural concert
• settings of the poetry of Bellede Zuylen (a.k.a. Isabelle de Charriere) in French and English - with new translations by Jessica Duchen.
• WP Amsterdam's Concertgebauw 4th July, 2021
• Listen to excerpts and interview about it here
• buy score here and violin part here
• lasts approx. 18 mins

• commissioned by the Julian Bream Trust for Diogo Carlos to premiere at the Wigmore Hall, London, November 2021
• follows an ethnomusicological sea journey passengers took to India in the 1920s
• lasts approx. 15 mins
• buy here

• commissioned for the Salisbury Cathedral Girl Choristers' 30th Anniversary
• setting George Herbert's "The Pearl. Matthew 13:45"
• to be performed in October 2021
• approx. 6 mins 30 secs
• buy here

• commissioned by the Choral Scholars of the South West for a fundraising virtual evensong, in aid of Cathedral Choir's Emergency Fund
• "Let all the World in ev'ry corner Sing" by George Herbert
• premiered 28th July, 2020 https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/scholarsevensong
• approx. 4 mins
• buy here

• commissioned by Twickenham Choral to celebrate their centenary.
• setting of the first verse of Alexander Pope's "Ode to Musick"
• WP 13th May 2021, Twickenham
• lasts approx. 9 mins

• commissioned and premiered online by the Sacconi Quartet
• First movement "Uzbek Processional" based on dance music of 17th century Uzbek court musicians
• Second movement "Lament for a Bulgarian Dancing Bear" uses the real rhythm and pattern of a bear's heartbeat and Bulgarian folk music elements
• lasts approximately 11 mins
• click here to watch (in at 25:00)
• buy here

"...a beautiful, imaginative exploration of that vital, beating organ (in this case the heart of a bear) on which we depend."

Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

"The whole is shot through with a poignancy that is infinitely touching. Panufnik judges atmospherics such as asynchronicity perfectly, just as she does the music blossoming out into consonances. A wonderful work: the recording is keenly anticipated."

Colin Clarke, SeenandHeard-International.com

"Roxanna Panufnik's Heartfelt (2019) was an uplifting celebration of life, inspired by such diverse sources as the heartbeat of a brown bear and Uzbek and Bulgarian folk tunes. The Captivating offbeat result of this avid eclecticism was a cogently argued narrative that, in the safe hand of the Solem Quartet, communicated the composer's own authentic musical voice."

Musical Opinion Quarterly

• setting of "Hymn to the Dawn XLV" from The Rig Veda (Indian Vedic Hymns)
• starts mysteriously but ends with loud joy
• commissioned by Ex Cathedra and premiered by them and their conductor Jeffrey Skidmore at Dartington International Summer School in 2018
• recorded by Ex Cathedra on Roxanna's Celestial Bird CD (Signum Classics)
• can be performed with multiple or solo voices and singers can be dotted around the stage and auditorium.
• approx. 3'15"
• buy here

• settings of A Summer Wish (Rosetti), Now is the time for the Burning of Leaves (Binyon), Blow, blow thou Winter Wind (Shakespeare) and Spring (Manley Hopkins)
• Spring and Summer commissioned by the Royal Academy of the Arts and Wayneflete Singers respectively. Autumn and Winter commissioned by The Bach choir
• World premiere on 17.10.19 with The Bach Choir & Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by David Hill, at the Royal Festival Hall, London
• approx. 25 mins
• buy or hire here

“Her music is saturated with colour, its bitonal language is bittersweet and piquant. A good match, then, for seasonal themes of growth and decay, for underscoring the bright urgency of life.”

Rebecca Franks, The Times

“…there was much to admire, with Roxanna Panufnik’s recently completed Four Choral Seasons forming a substantial response to English poetry. Written across a span of over two decades, Four Choral Seasons brought a remarkable stylistic unity; its harmonic conservatism laced with bitonality creating the trademark Panufnik sound. The Bach Choir was fully engaged with the work’s unpredictable vocal contours, each section bringing commendable tone and conviction to exposed passages between more expansive double choir textures. Its imaginative scoring, sensitively balanced by the Philharmonia players, brought colour and pulsing energy (much vibraphone and harp) to the languorous choral lines of the opening ‘season’, while swirling woodwind and animated violins neatly evoked Binyon’s “burning of the leaves”. To winter’s icy blasts Panufnik created a jolly romp, rhythmically agile and melodically grateful, and ‘Spring’ concluded with what felt like hard-earned joy.”

David Truslove, classicalsource.com

• Introit, setting of Psalm 117 in Hebrew and English, using a traditional Sephardic tune
• Composed for uncle Toby Jessel’s Jewish-Christian Memorial service at St Margaret’s Church Westmisnter (30.05.19)
• approx 2 mins
• buy here

• (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)
• commissioned by the RundfunkChor Berlin for Beethoven’s 250th birthday celebrations in 2020
• words collated, arranged and composed by Jessica Duchen, from Beethoven’s own letters and his favourite writers inc. Goethe, Schiller & Kant
• world premiere will take place on 01.05.20 at Berlin’s Philharmonie with choirs from Brazil, South Africa, Lebanon, Belgium, Singapore, Sweden, Philippines and USA and the Rundfunk Orchestra. It will be broadcast LIVE on German TV and radio.
• approx 45 mins
• hire here

• Commissioned for and premiered at BBC Last Night of the Proms 
• Setting “In the Underworld” by Isaac Rosenberg and lines form Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet
• Combining Ashkenazy Jewish, Maronite Christian and Sufi Muslim musical elements
• Lasts approx. 9 minutes
• buy or hire here

"Roxanna Panufnik’s stately Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light, brought together Christianity, Judaism and Islam, its choral slurs and slides and jazzy brass and percussion powerfully evoking non-European traditions."

Nick Kimberley, The Evening Standard

"The work is well laid out for the two groups and orchestra and in its modestly conservative idiom made a pleasing impression."

Alan Sanders, Seen-and-heard-international.com

"Roxanna Panufnik’s Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light, combined a First World War poem and lines from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet in a mood of mournful, eastern-flavoured tenderness.”

Ivan Hewitt, The Telegraph

• commissioned by the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition for 2019 contestants
• fantasy on an Ashkenazi Cantorial chant
• approx 6 mins
• buy here

• Introit commissioned for the centenary celebrations of the choir of Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina (Lagos)
• words by Bishop Akinpelu Johnson
• WP 25th November, 2018
• approx 2'30"
• buy here

• setting of first verse of original Ubi Caritas plainsong in Latin and English
• written as a leaving gift for Sr Paula Thomas, Roxanna's daughters' headmistress
• first performance 20th June 2018 at the school Summer Concert
• approx 3'30"
• buy here

• commissioned and premiered by Peterborough Cathedral
• approx 4 mins
• buy here

• setting of Rabindranath Tagore's famous love poem
• commissioned by National Youth Choir of Great Britain for their Training Choir and premiered with South Asian Musicians from Milapfest on 13.04.17 at the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham
• can also be sung a cappella
• approx 10 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here 

• Setting of Sir John Tavener's 99 Words to my Darling Children Theodora, Sofia & Orlando
• commissioned and premiered by Suzi Digby, Voce Chamber Choir with Matthew Barley on 'cello and Simon Russell Beale narrating
• recorded on 99 Words CD sold in aid of Tavener Foundation
• approx 8 mins
• read Roxanna's article about it in The Guardian
• buy here

"Then there’s the title track: 99 Words to my Darling Children is the musical keystone to the programme, a work that pairs Tavener’s own text with Panufnik’s music – a homage that borrows Tavener’s instrumentation and even elements of his style while also remaining true to Panufnik’s own idiom. The result – a lullaby that cradles its sung text with infinite tenderness – is exquisite, and beautifully handled by Voce’s amateur singers."

Alexandra Coghlan, Gramophone

"Probably of chief interest is Panufnik’s setting of 99 Words to my Darling Children, a beautiful piece made for these performers…”

Philip Reed, Choir & Organ (5 stars)

"What a beautiful album. And what a fitting tribute to John Tavener and his unique artistic vision. 99 Words presents music that honors the memory of Tavener, interspersed with music by Tavener. It’s a powerful combination. The title track, “99 Words,” is a heartbreaking, yet inspiring work. The words are spoken, wreathen in choral sound clouds with a cello obbligato. The composer writes, “the cello represents John [Tavener] — supporting, encouraging, and embellishing the words.” And that’s exactly what it seems to do. Without copying Tavener, Panufnik has captured the essence of the composer. In the process, she’s transformed his deeply personal message into one we can all embrace.

This is just one of those releases where everything’s right — the program, the sequencing, the recording, the performances, and the music. Especially the music."

Ralph Graves, WTJU 91.1fm

• Jointly commissioned, for the centenary of Poland becoming an independent state, and premiered by the National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
• Combines Catholic mass (in Latin) with 11 Polish poems (in English and Polish) describing historical events of Poland’s last 100 years.
• Suffused with Polish folk music
• Approx 65 mins
• Click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

• Anthem
• setting of a prayer of St Aidan of Lindisfarne, in English and Italian
• written as an 80th birthday present to Roxanna's Godfather
• premiered by the choir of Holy Redeemer Church Chelsea, with Roxanna's son Ben as treble soloist
• approx 3'30"
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• "People's Opera" commissioned by Garsington Opera, for mixed professional and amateur singers and instrumentalists
• libretto by Jessica Duchen
• Premiere 28th/29th/30th July 2017
• Approx 70 mins
• Watch BBC Film about it
• Read rave reviews here

“Roxanna Panufnik’s Silver Birch embodies the power of music to transform lives and communicate a profound, universal message.
Jessica Duchen’s libretto seamlessly blends letters documenting the experiences of serving soldiers in Iraq with the poetry and diaries of soldier Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) to convey a timeless picture of the individual cost of war without ignoring its related courage and comradeship.

Panufnik and Duchen’s achievement is to synthesise personal and poetic experiences, often harrowing and disturbing, into a work of beauty and hope.”

Amanda-Jane Doran, www.classicalsource.com 5 stars

“Jessica Duchen’s libretto is powerful and poetic and Roxanna Panufnik’s music busy and imaginative. I liked her Gershwin-like harmonic richness and the idle Eastern melodic twists she introduced in the war-zone acts.
Whether it’s epic crowd scenes or anguished soliloquies, however, all are folded into a nonstop hour-long drama that is cinematic in its scope and fluidity.”

Richard Morrison, The Times, 4 stars

“Roxanna Panufnik has chosen to describe her new creation Silver Birch as a people’s, rather than a community, opera in order to emphasise the extent to which it is intended to transform people’s lives. It is a noble aim and one that seems to be very much fulfilled. It is obvious that the work has had an enormous impact…

Panufnik’s music is both strong and accessible. It is designed to stretch the singers rather than patronise them, and yet is set up so that intriguing effects can be generated from music that is manageable for large groups to execute to a high standard.

Jessica Duchen’s libretto is highly effective, and includes poetry by Sassoon alongside popular songs.

…a work that it is safe to say is having an impact on performers and audiences alike, and which stands as one of the very best examples of this type of opera.”

Sam Smith, www.musicomh.com 5 stars

“For Panufnik, this very professional piece of work should be a useful stepping stone to something bigger. For its cohorts of community singers and dancers, well drilled by conductor Douglas Boyd, this was a real achievement in itself.”

Richard Fairman, The Financial Times 4 stars

“… A remarkable event with a vast community cast.
There is a real sense of vision in this coming together, as clear in the unstoppable energy of the performers as it is in the excellence of the stagecraft displayed in Karen Gillingham’s complex production.
Verdict: Karen Gillingham’s staging of Roxanna Panufnik’s community opera is a remarkable event.”

The Stage, 4 stars

"Roxanna Panufnik writes bold passionate choruses, often easily lyrical but never simplistic or overtly popular. This was a magnificent undertaking for all concerned."

Brian Hick, Musical Opinion

“This was undoubtedly the most uplifting and moving evening I’ve spent in the theatre this year.

The juxtaposition of the children back home playing and taunting in the playground and the horror of the front line – one of the most effective on-stage evocations of war I’ve ever seen was almost unbearably poignant. Roxanna Panufnik’s fine music is full of mood change too.

I really hope that this fine work does not begin and end at Wormsley with three Garsington Opera performances in the heart of idyllic Oxfordshire countryside. It deserves many more outings – soon.”

Susan Elkin, Sardines Magazine

• setting of two Shakespeare sonnets "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day" and "How like a Winter" with instrumental interlude
• commissioned arrangement of movements from "The Generation of Love" (tenor, horn and piano or strings)
• World Premiere with MultiTrio in Poland, 18th September 2016
• approx. 14 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• written as a birthday present for Lucas Dick
• approx Grade 6/7 standard
• approx 4 mins
• buy here

• Introit
• Verse 2 from Psalm 5
• written as a raffle prize for and first performed by Westminster Abbey Choir, 28.11.15
• approx 2 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• inspired by writings of Aung San Suu Chi
• originally with string quartet, commissioned by Minterne Music society for Dougie Boyd and the Vellinger Quartet
• new orchestrated version requested by oboist James Turnbull who will be premiering it with the Festival Chamber Orchestra, Canterbury on 16.04.16
• approx 12 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• commissioned by the Menuhin Competition for semi-finalists to play
• based on Romanian gypsy music with Bulgarian gypsy rhythm
• World Premiere will be given by Jiafeng Chen in London on 7th April, 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall
• approx 5 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• commissioned by Dean Close School for the dedication of their new organ
• texts taken form Dryden's Ode to St Cecilia
• dramatically upbeat...
• first performed by Dean Close Chapel & Chamber choirs, Tewkesbury Abbey Schola, Carleton Etherington (organ), Simon Bell (cond.), 24.04.15
• approx 6 minutes
• buy here

• motet commissioned by The Tablet Magazine for their 175th anniversary Mass, at Westminster Cathedral
• words from Proverbs (New Revised Standard Version Bible)
• approx. 4'30"
• buy here

• commissioned by Leon Bosch and Swaledale Music Festival
• affectionate treatment of popular South African song
• To be premiered at Swaledale Festival 27th May, 2015
• approx 4'30"
• buy here

"… a poignant meditation on the celebrated African Miner's song… Shosholoza drew upon the lyrical aspects of the double bass, taking advantage of the instrument's wide range and breadth of sonority. In addition, the piano part transcended the role of a mere accompaniment, forming an essential strand of the score's fabric. Leon Bosch and Sung-Suk Kang were keenly responsive to the subtlety and delicacy of Panufnik's deeply-felt offering which exploited these players' particular skills…. deserves the widest possible circulation."

Paul Conway, Musical Opinion Quarterly

• a cycle of Shakespeare sonnets, following a dramatic narrative about love going wrong
• original version with piano instead of strings commissioned by the Temple Music Foundation and premiered by Mark Padmore, Richard Watkins & Julius Drake on 18th November 2010 at Middle Temple Hall, London
• Orchestration commissioned and premiered on 16th May 2014 by Orchestra of the Swan with Richard Edgar Wilson, Francesca Moore-Bridger and conducted by David Curtis
• approx 22 mins
• click here for perusal score
• hire here

• instrumental arrangements of Derwid (aka Lutoslawski) tangos and foxtrots
• arranged for the Warsaw Cabaret Evening at Panufnik100 - a Family Celebration, King's Place (30th November, 2014)
• Premiered by Clare Hammond & the Brodsky Quartet
• approx 12 mins
• click here for perusal score

• commissioned by William Whitehead for his Orgelbüchlein project
• based on a melody of Severus Gastorius
• premiere by WIlliam Whitehead at Westminster Abbey
• approx 2 mins
• buy here

• commissioned by London Festival of Contemporary Church Music for live Evensong broadcast on BBC Radio 3, 14th May 2014
• in Latin
• lasts approximately 7' 30"
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"Panufnik’s Magnificat is a beautifully sustained eight-voice treatment of Mary’s canticle."

Richard Morrison, The Times

"Really striking choral textures…, right from the very opening she gains our full attention with a rising flourish settling on a radiant chord all reflecting the mood of the text… The harmonic language makes me think of a stained glass window - brilliant primary colours juxtaposed with more ambiguous muted effects."

Sarah Walker, Sunday Morning, BBC Radio 3

"… a lightly Life of Pi-esqe celebration of faith, was a compelling and joyous listen. The organ part bubbled excitedly beneath the choir, who sang their harmonically sweet, exploratory music very effectively (…) this was a delightfully fresh take on a not-so-fresh tradition."

www.bachtrack.com

• setting of Shakespeare's Sonnet 8
• commissioned by Peninsular Arts/Plymouth University for Oliver Dunn & Emma Abbate
• WP 23rd March 2014 Plymouth UNiversity
• approx. 4 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• Arrangement of the song by Andrzej & Roxanna Panufnik
• (see www.roxannapanufnik.com/works-vocal.asp for further details)
• approx. 5mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"Panufnik's opening theme, with its strange major/minor bitonality is strangely haunting, his daughter's middle section develops this to create more complex textures. The result is a highly effective string piece."

www.planethugill.com

• Commissioned by ORA for a recording
• meditation on the Kyrie melody from Byrd's 5 part Mass
• approx 3 mins
• buy here

"Beginning and ending in hushed reverence, Panufnik's version slowly blooms in contemporary harmonies. Voices interweave in dusky colors, pierced by strands of white light from the upper ranges of ORA's beautifully blended sopranos. Two minutes in, the piece pauses on a lovely drone from the basses, before the vocal engine chugs back up to speed — ominous and inevitable."

Tom Huizenga, NPR Classical

• upbeat fanfare commissioned by COMA for it's 25th birthday concert
• easily playable parts which can be allocated to various wind and brass instruments
• approx 1 minute
• buy here

• commissioned by Matthew Trussler for his Wonderland project
• a musical reflection of the first chapter of Alice in Wonderland
• approx 2'30"
• buy here

• commissioned by Ex Cathedra
• texts by Robert Bulwer-Lytton & Kathleen Coates
• about long-distance love between a woman at home and a man at the World War I front
• premiere 31.01.15 at Birmingham Town Hall
• approx 10 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"… a wonderfully warm work of immense emotional sincerity interweaving two deeply-felt poems of lovers’ separations. Panufnik’s well-layered choral textures combined with adroit imagery from a tiny instrumental group to create a heart-stopping 10 minutes."

Christopher Morely, Birmingham Post

• setting of poem by Jennifer Powers
• written for and premiered by VOCES8 02.12.13
• approx 5 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

“…luminous settings of sacred texts…sumptuous harmonies that soar and sting…. Salve Regina captures, especially in this eloquent performance, the lilt and meditative space of medieval chant, albeit vividly reimagined. …luscious romanticism of Since We Parted… Child of Heaven swirls across a number of Indian modes… elegantly shaped and full of warmth, rather like this disc as a whole.”

Kate Wakeling, BBC Music Magazine

"…an imaginative, distinctive and expressive composer… 'Unending love' uses a poem by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and mixes Western and South Indian music in a highly original way, with, as a formative element, Carnatic – South Indian – singing… this release, which is performed to a high standard, confirms Panufnik’s reputation for composing music which is demanding yet accessible, with emotion, sensuality and a lyrical play of colours.” (original review in German here »)

Remy Franck, www.pizzicato.lu 4 stars

“…luminous and enticing… her writing for voices is always fluent and idiomatic Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis for St Pancras elides elegantly between its texts; a warmly expressive setting of Blake’s ‘A Cradle Song’ that avoids mawkishness; …a pleasurable disc.”

Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone Magazine

"…vivacious harmonies and church peals - joyous music!"

Jamie McDougall, album of the week, BBC Scotland "Classics Unwrapped"

• In memoriam piece to straddle Lutosławski's and Andrzej Panunfik's centenaries (2013/2014 respectively)
• 3 movements: I Lutosławski, II Panufnik and III LutoPanufski (the latter celebrating the piano duo they had during WWII)
• string strength: 33221, 33221
• commissioned by the Leopoldinum Orchestra with funds from the Institute of Music & Dance (Poland)
• First performance to be conducted by Ernst Kovacic in Wrocław, 15.12.13
• approx 15 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

• co-commissioned by Welsh Sinfonia and Cheltenham Music Festival, to mirror Britten's Young Person's Guide, from a 21st Century perspective
• Each instrument takes on an anthropomorphic character and style with their respective takes on the trad. Welsh theme, Dros yr Afon
• Can be accompanied by humorous and quirky illustrations, projected above the orchestra, by artist Jem Panufnik
• premiered by Welsh Sinfonia (cond. Mark Eager) at the Dora Stoutzker Hall, Cardiff, 18.04.13.
• approx 17 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

"Roxanna Panufnik’s Orchestrapaedia is a light-hearted response to Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Her approach is somewhat akin to Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals in that she seeks to personify the various instruments, imbuing them with an assortment of names and personalities as the story of a “day in the life” of the orchestra unfurled. The story itself was detailed colourfully in the programme notes and further enhanced by Jem Panufnik’s projected illustrations. Not only did the inclusion of these images allow for the progressive sections to be immediately clear for a first-time listener, but they also allowed for a smoother flow overall, since a narrator was unnecessary. The style of the work was a theatrical fusion of various musical genres, most notably jazz and folk, which was strikingly different to her father’s more Eastern-European style of writing. A succinct and engaging addition to the canon of orchestral “guides”."

Philip May, Bachtrack.com

"The clarinet variation, with the big brassy swing-band climaxes which were supposed to represent the husband being woken up by his wife, would be regarded as grounds for divorce in some circles, and would certainly lead to irate appearances on daytime reality TV shows. The programme was illustrated with projected cartoons by the composer’s brother Jem Panufnik, enjoyable in themselves and with a quirky humour that recalled Hoffnung. Nevertheless one suspects that the future of the work may be as a purely orchestral set of variations – a Variations and Fugue on a theme of Purcell rather than a Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra – and as such it would be an enjoyable concert piece in its own right."

Paul Corfield Godfrey, SeenandHeard-International.com

"Highly visual and sonorous due to the innovative combination of classical, jazz and Riverdance-style sounds, the gorgeous melodies and illustrations consisted of mysterious percussions, shimmering flutes and piccolos, cranky oboes, swooping clarinets, a booming bass, fiery Mexican trumpets, sexy alpine horns and romantic strings. It was a strikingly unique piece that complemented the lively personality of its composer. The vibrant and humorous illustrations by Jem Panufnik (Roxanna’s brother), which were projected behind the orchestra, complimented the music exquisitely. Notably captivating images included the duelling, sombrero-wearing Mexican trumpet, the star cross’d lovers violin and cello and my personal favourite, butterfly flutes."

Lowri Martinson, buzzmag.co.uk

• commissioned by the London Mozart Players to celeberate the Charles Dickens Bicentenary
• variations on one of DIckens's favourite street ballads "The Cat's Meat Man"
• premiered by LMP at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon on 04.10.12
• approx 5 mins
• click here for perusal score

• commissioned by Portsmouth Grammar School for Remembrance Day concert
• libretto by Norman Lebrecht, based on his novel of the same title - about 2 Jewish boys in WWII
• premiered on 11th November 2012 at Portsmouth Cathedral with baritone Nigel Cliffe, the trebles of Portsmouth Cathedral, Portsmouth Grammar School Chamber Choir and London Mozart Players
• approx 20 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

"…The Song of Names by Roxanna Panufnik, based on Norman Lebrecht’s novel about a Polish refugee whose family died in the Holocaust.

Ms Panufnik’s ability to make an emotional connection, particularly in matching words to music, was evident both in the baritone solos sung with awesome power by Nigel Cliffe and in the exceptional choruses from the PGS Chamber Choir.

The sense of grief was almost tangible, yet the music is ultimately very uplifting.

The choir and the London Mozart Players under Nicholas Cleobury displayed fervour, finesse and flair in catching every different shift of mood."

Mike Allen, Portsmouth News

• part of Dance of Life - just the Latin Mass movements
• based on Estonian folkmusic
• approx 18 mins
• click here for perusal score
• hire here

• commissioned by Tallinn Philharmonic to celebrate Tallinn's tenure of European Capital of Culture
• oratorio with Latin Mass text with 19 poems (in Estonian or English) by Doris Kareva & Jürgen Rooste
• incorporating Estonian folk songs
• Mass parts availble independently, as "Tallinn Mass"
• premiered 29th June 2011 at St John's Church Tallinn
• to be recorded on the Warner Classics label for release in the US end of 2013 and in the UK Spring 2014
• approx 60 mins
• click here for perusal score
• hire here

"Ecstatic, affirmative…brilliantly performed… sensationally recorded"

Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk

"Magnificent music… The Performance is superb, as is the clear and brilliant sound. Panufnik's art is something special, putting her among the elite composers in the world today."

Stephen Ritter, Audiophile Audition

• Commissioned by the Brodsky String Quartet for performance and recording during Andrzej Panufnik Centenary 2014
• First movement "O Tu Andrzej" centres around Gesualdo's "O Vos Omens" which appears in a transcription for string quartet after Roxanna's own introduction - a harmonic homage to her father.
• Second movement "Greek Photostory" is about the eccentric stories the Panufnik family used to create (with Camilla Jessel Panufnik FRPS's photos to document) using Greek folk influences and bazooka techniques...
• The two movements can be used to interleave Andrzej Panufnik's 1st and 2nd, then 2nd and 3rd Quartets or completely independently.
• Recorded for release on the Chandos label with her father's quartets and sextets in September 2014.
• Premieres in UK and Poland tbc.
• Lasts approx 10 minutes
• buy here

"Roxanna Panufnik’s piece starts with O Tu Andrzej, a sensuously chromatic tribute to her father’s admiration for the music of Gesualdo. Then Greek Photostory recalls childhood holidays in a rondo; its main theme acts as an increasingly unruly and bouzouki-like pizzicato Greek chorus. Bowed, mirage-like modal episodes culminate in bell-like rejoicing."

Hilary Finch, The Times

"Memories of my Father is, as its title suggests, a deeply personal work but also a joyous one and its diverse sonorities and mercurial character kept the listener involved from first bar to last. (both Roxanna's and Andrzej's works) were enthusiastically received by a capacity audience."

Paul Conway, Musical Opinion

• setting of the Latin text and incorporating the original plainsong by Hermman the Lame
• commissioned and premiered by Chappelle du Roi, 07.12.12
• dedicated to my mother on her 75th birthday (on which the premiere took place)
• approx 3'30"
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• Latin Happy Birthday tribute to Cappella Nova, commissioned to celebrate their 30th anniversary
• to be premiered in Glasgow and Edinburgh on 30th and 31st May 2012
• approx 3 mins
• buy here

• commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of Fairfield Halls, in Croydon
• will be premiered by London Mozart Players on 2nd November, 2012
• approx 4 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

• commissioned by St Alfege Church, Greenwich to commemorate the millennium anniversary of St Alfege's death
• text is a translation and adaptation by Stephen Macklow-Smith of the final words of Osbern's Life of St Alfege
• premiered 19th April 2012, a
• buy here

• setting of psalm 135 (136) using Spanish Sephardic chant
• commissioned by Soli Deo GLoria INc. for Westminster Cathedral Choir
• world premiere 13.05.12, vespers, Westminster Cathedral
• approx 5 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• dramatic work inspired by the old Rye Legend of doomed love between a monk and a local girl
• commissioned for Julie Price and the Wihan String Quartet by Rye Festival to celebrate their 40th Anniversary
• premiered at Rye Festival 17th September 2011
• approx 12 mins
• buy here

Roxanna Panufnik’s Cantator and Amanda for bassoon with string quartet was originally composed for the distinguished British bassoonist Julie Price and the Wihan Quartet, and it is a ravishing and compelling work that expertly exploits the communicative power of the bassoon. The piece illuminates the tale of the ill-fated love affair between a fourteenth-century monk in Rye, and a local ‘girl’, Amanda. A plaintive bassoon solo sets proceedings in motion, and Roxanna Panufnik’s music is exceedingly tender and evocative as the couple’s love blossoms. Following their failed attempt to elope however, the music becomes increasingly anguished and desperate as the hapless Cantator loses his mind and life, bricked up alive in the Friary walls, with a poignant bassoon solo that depicts the death of Amanda from a broken heart, concluding proceedings."

Leon Bosch, seenandheard-international.com

"For me it worked on every level: comprehensively structured, inventive, idiomatic in its instrumental writing, and lucidly depicting a touching story without overstatement or overworking the musical material. Soloist Amy Harman and the (Royal Northern Sinfonia) orchestra seemed utterly convinced by this novel tone-poem, from its pulsing opening portrait of Amanda and the development of love (as the protagonists begin to finish each others' sentences), through panic of elopement and capture, to Amanda's final lament."

Robert Gammon, York Press

• Setting of the famous texts in English, with the Magnificat having a Marion twist...
• Co-commissioned by St Mark's Episcopal Church, Philadelphia and the Exultate Singers, Bristol
• world premiere 25.03.12 St Mark's Philadelphia and UK premiere 19.05.12 the Exultate Singers at the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music
• Magnificat approx 6 mins, Nunc Dimittis approx 4 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"Really striking choral textures…, right from the very opening she gains our full attention with a rising flourish settling on a radiant chord all reflecting the mood of the text… The harmonic language makes me think of a stained glass window - brilliant primary colours juxtaposed with more ambiguous muted effects."

Sarah Walker, Sunday Morning, BBC Radio 3

"… a lightly Life of Pi-esqe celebration of faith, was a compelling and joyous listen. The organ part bubbled excitedly beneath the choir, who sang their harmonically sweet, exploratory music very effectively (…) this was a delightfully fresh take on a not-so-fresh tradition."

www.bachtrack.com

• https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/68286/Four-World-Seasons--Roxanna-Panufnik/commissioned by Tasmin Little, with the Orchestra of the Swan and London Mozart Players
• 4 movements: Autumn in Albania, Tibetan Winter, Spring in Japan and Indian Summer - can be performed individually or in pairs, threes or all together
• world premiere of all four together (and Autumn in Albania) with Tasmin, LMP and Gerard Korsten 02.03.12 at The Anvil Basingstoke and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, launching their Music Nation weekend to celebrate the 2012 Olympics.
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

"We had a high old time on Saturday at the London premiere of Roxanna Panufnik's Four World Seasons. It's a far-flung take on the Four Seasons concept, integrating folk styles from around the world with Roxanna's distinctive, often bitonal harmonic voice. It manages to be original, imaginative and listenable without sacrificing one jot of character; and while demanding for the performers, it also looks and sounds enjoyable for them to play. Written for Tasmin Little and the London Mozart Players, it suited them down to the ground, and the Fairfield Halls audience gave it a warm welcome.

"Autumn in Albania" is full of Balkan rhythmic quirks and delicious folksy-Gypsyish slides; "Tibetan Winter" is an icy landscape haunted by a Tibetan "singing bowl"; "Spring in Japan" wakes up the earth from deep-rooted double basses through to the Japanese bush warbler on the fiddle; and "Indian Summer" is colourful, catchy and clever, transforming pizzicati on low strings into the flowing rhythms of the tabla, and turning Tasmin's violin into a singer. A terrific concert piece to put alongside those other Seasons from Vivaldi and Piazzolla - it's for the same forces, give or take the Tibetan singing bowl - and if recorded pronto, it ought to do well on Classic FM."

http://jessicamusic.blogspot.co.uk

"The opening 'Albanian Autumn' dances vigorously , then subsides into a soulful love song, before a Tibetan singing bowl heralds Winter: a subdued, thinly scored movement.'Spring in Japan' gradually burgeons into blossom and birdsong, while the Indian Summer' has a colourful opulence inflected by Raga modes. Panufnik draws the disparate elements together with inventive musicality, and Little and the orchestra clearly enjoy the rich variety she provides."

Martin Cotton, BBC Music Magazine

"Panufnik has written a really effective response to Vivaldi, ideally tailored to Little's artistry."

Richard Bratby, Gramophone Magazine (also one of "Best New Classical Albums 2016")

"Diese Weltreise der Violinmusik gibt der Komponistin die Gelegenheit, verschiedene Stile zu kombinieren und so auf der Basis ihres eigenen Stils ein interessantes und attraktives musikalisches Panorama zu schaffen. Die abwechslungsreiche Musik ist bei Tasmin Little in den besten Händen."

"Roxanna Panufnik’s Four World Seasons are colourful and truly interesting pieces rooting in the traditional music of four different regions: Autumn in Albania, Tibetan Winter, Spring in Japan and Indian Summer. Tasmin Little, who commissioned the work, is an accomplished and punchy soloist."

www.pizzicato.lu

"Avid lyricism and folkloric inflexions infuse Autumn in Albania, written in memory of her father Andrzej. The high-lying skittering figures sound like a Balkan lark, ascending, though there are also soulful moments where Little’s vibrato widens, sobbing into the autumnal air. The Tibetan singing bowl makes its presence felt in the second panel with its quasi-improvisatory elements – slow, spiritual, with a deeply long line. Rebirth features prominently in Spring in Japan, the tangy, clay-rich lower strings supporting the solo violin which gets more and more active and flighty as it burgeons into renewed life. Finally there is Indian Summer – Panufnik journeys not from Vivaldi’s Spring to Winter but from Autumn to Summer – in which fascinating hues and painterly colours lightly evoke, through violinistic techniques, Northern Indian traditional violin playing."

Jonathan Woolf, Musicweb-international.com

"...soloists and players were audibly excited to present this invigorating paean to various cultures in the changing seasons."

Musical Opinion Quarterly

• https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/67445/Autumn-in-Albania--Roxanna-Panufnik/commissioned by Tasmin Little and London Mozart Players
• starts with a fiery wedding dance and ends with a slow and passionate love song from Vloura, in the South of the country.
• premiered 02.03.12 at The Anvil Basingstoke, with commissioners and Gerard Korsten conducting. Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.
• Approx 6 mins
• perusal score here
• hire here

• Commissioned and premiered by Tasmin Little & Orchestra of the Swan, Spring Sounds Festival 1st May, 2009
• Part of a new international Four Seasons for Tasmin – next: Indian Summer
• Approx. 5 mins
• hire here

“This evocative piece used Tibetan song as its inspiration, and Tasmin Little coaxed a huge variety of vocal qualities and colours from her solo line as the gentle declamation of the initial material became increasingly ornamented, phrase endings echoed by the string ensemble. As the violin line became less song-like glacial orchestral harmonics formed a chill background until the warmer sounds of cellos and basses brought the piece to an end.”

John Gough, Birmingham Post

“With its unfamiliar tonal scales, bursts of tremolo and sudden stops it had a distinctly otherworldly feel. As the violin melody became more pronounced, the upper strings provided an eerie accompaniment using harmonics. It was as if the music was gliding over the frozen wastes of a distinctly chilly Tibet.”

Roger Jones, MusicWeb International

“… like a frozen Lark Ascending.”

Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

• Commissioned and premiered by Tasmin Little & Orchestra of the Swan, Spring Sounds Festival 5th May, 2008
• Part of a new international Four Seasons for Tasmin 
• Approx. 5 mins
• hire here

“… This tiny piece, receiving its premiere here, burgeoned with joyous exhilaration, Little's solo line trilling and dancing, and interacting zippily with various soloists from Curtis' orchestra.”

Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

• Commissioned and premiered by Tasmin Little & Orchestra of the Swan, Spring Sounds Festival 28th April, 2010
• Part of a new international Four Seasons for Tasmin 
• Approx. 7 mins
• hire here

"Complementing Vivaldi's Venetian hinterland Four Seasons, which (Tasmin) Little directed from the violin in the second half, Panufnik's cycle takes its inspiration from far and wide, and here the drones and microtonal slides of subcontinental music are much in evidence, summoning a sense of sultry heat. Little's violin soared free of the dense textures and insect-activity, and we ended on a long-drawnout resolution of satisfying finality."

Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

• commissioned for "Choirbook for the Queen" anthology celebrating the her Diamond Jubilee in 2012
• words especially written by Roger McGough
• premiered by Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Choir with Christopher McElroy conducting
• recorded by BBC Singers with conductor Stephen Cleobury - introduction and recording here
• last approx. 4 mins
• buy here

• Dramatic account of Jesus's childhood, as told by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, adapted by Jessica Duchen
• incorporates traditional Yemenis Mourner's Kaddish (Jewish prayer) in its original Aramaic
• commissioned by Chanticleer to start a programme about Jesus's life
• premiere will be 26th March 2011, San Francisco, USA with Chanticleer and conductor Matthew Oltman
• approx 10 minutes
• buy here

"Panufnik's setting has an emotional gutsiness and an anguished, bitonal harmonic language that combines with the energy of the ancient chant to pack a hefty punch."

Jessica Duchen, Standpoint

• Advent carol setting of George Herbert
• commissioned by St John's College Cambridge for their Advent service
• premiered by the choir, conductor Andrew Nethsinga and harpist Alison Martin 27.11.10, with another performance on 28.11.10 which was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3
• approx. 4 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"She (Roxanna) adds to the choir a harp, creating an opulent, even heady setting, the continual upward motion of the harp sounding like clouds of rising incense; it's a gorgeous piece, each stanza bestowed with Panufnik's trademark rich tonality."

www.5-against-4.blogspot.com

• setting of text by Wendy Cope
• Commissioned by Juice Vocal Ensemble as a part of a series of short love songs
• premiered at Vale of Glamorgan Festival, 10.09.10
• approx 3 mins 30 seconds
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• a cycle of Shakespeare sonnets, following a dramatic narrative about love going wrong
• commissioned by the Temple Music Foundation, after the successful premiere of the final song in the cycle, Winter's Near, last year
• premiered by Mark Padmore, Richard Watkins & Julius Drake on 18th November 2010 at Middle Temple Hall, London
• approx 22 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• commissioned by The World Orchestra for Peace
• orchestral prelude adapted from violin concerto "Abraham", incorporating Christian, Jewish & Islamic chant and music
• premiered at the Jerusalem Theatre, Jerusalem under the baton of Valery Gergiev in October 2008.
• video clip and article can be found on cnn.com - click here
• approx. 12 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"Listen to Panufnik’s Three Paths to Peace and some extraordinary linkages occur between the disparate traditions she has recruited. Of course the assumption of the work is that they are no more disparate than complementary. It works, at first defiantly but then organically. It becomes increasingly possible to hear technical discord as imaginative concord."

Franks on Friday, Articles of Faith, The Times

"…Panufnik's 'Three Paths to Peace' is an evocative tone poem… Especially effective was the telling opening, a Muezzin-inspired violin soliloquy based on eastern melismatic microtonal portamenti, superimposed by peals of Anglican church bells, and later delicate oboe evocations of a shofar call. Overall Panufnik succeeded in creating an appealingly impressionistic orchestral tapestry, displaying her instinctive feel for collage-like superimpositions, overlapping and dovetailing of strands, which Gergiev wove into Transluscent textures."

Malcolm Miller, Musical Opinion

“Panufnik's starting point is the story of Abraham and its importance to Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike, and her score emphasises the need for tolerance by depicting the sacrifice of Isaac through the traditional music of all three faiths. The best of it is sensuously appealing: Sufi drum rhythms drive Abraham through his spiritual crisis; a tapestry of string figurations, gradually resolving into a monotone, eventually reasserts calm.”

Tim Ashley, The Guardian

“The quality of musicianship was clear in Roxanna Panufnik's Three Paths to Peace (2008), a work of sensuous quietude, in which Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions meet.”

Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

“The very egalitarianism behind Panufnik’s piece perhaps reflects the orchestra’s priorities of peace, and it is expertly written. The concept is stimulating, and the realisation expert both in terms of Panufnik’s sensitive scoring and Gergiev’s realisation.”

Colin Clarke, SeenandHeard-International.com

• setting of 10 poems about the kinds of people who attend classical concerts, by Wendy Cope
• commissioned by the Endellion String Quartet to mark their 30th anniversary
• premiered by the Endellions and Wendy Cope at Norfolk & Norwich Festival 9th May 2009
• approx 27 mins
• buy here

"Roxanna Panufnik’s The Audience is a highly perceptive take on some of the different characters that populate concert halls. Using witty texts by Wendy Cope the piece surveys a wide range of styles and emotions. Much humour is evident and there is also some wonderfully moving and evocative music that stands alone as testament to Panufnik’s considerable skill: ‘The Widow’ is particularly lush, sensitive and evocative. Panufnik writes wonderfully for strings. The Tippett Quartet was on fine form bringing a rich sound to bear on this fine work, and there was lively narration from Julia Kogan. Hopefully none of us could possibly fit into the mould of the characters portrayed."

Colin Anderson, Classical Source

"The quartet appeared to be enjoying the parody as much as the listeners it was about, and breaking down the mental barriers and conventions of a classical concert, it was a riotously funny and insightful piece."

Rob Garratt, Norwich Evening News

• setting of the Latin Mass, incorporating Missa de Angelis plainsong (words in Latin and English)
• commissioned by the London Oratory School Schola
• Other versions: organ; string orchestra sccomp.; simplified congregational with organ
• Premiere will be on 7th May 2010 at St James' Church, Spanish Place, London
• Approx 20 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

“This magical moment feels like an unexpected break in the clouds, a vision of God’s dazzling rays shining through, and has great dramatic impact. The voices float upwards, the trebles harmonising in gentle thirds before the toiling brasses resume. These glimpses of eternity happen twice more before the work closes on a final peaceful resolution. …a valuable addition to the canon of accessible choral settings of the Eucharist. It is sure to find its way into the repertoire of parish choirs…”

Rick Jones, The Tablet

• Commissioned by Cork International Choral Festival
• Tongue-in-cheek settings of two Wendy Cope poems the homeless hammer and Some Rules
• Premiere 30th April 2010 with conductor Paul Hiller and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland
• Approx. 5 mins 
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"…bears rich textural contrasts, spiky humour and a real sense of fun across its five-minute course. The finely chiselled music catches the flavour of Wendy Cope's verse, by turns edgy (as in 'the homeless hammer'), whimsical ('solitary beer-mat') and light of heart. Panufnik brilliantly combines the spirit of a playground song with the tarnishing air of adult urban neuroses in 'Some Rules' to warn against answering e-mails 'when you're drunk'! Panufnik's Two Poems is ideal matter for pitch-secure singers who delight in the music of words."

Andrew Stewart, Choir & Organ

"A diptych commissioned this year from Roxanna Panufnik humorously takes the sensationalised banality of two poems by Wendy Cope to an almost surrealist plane."

Andrew Johnstone, Irish Times

• Commissioned by the Exultate Singers for a concert marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
• Setting of Julian of Norwich’s famous “All Shall be Well” chapter 32 from her “Divine Revelations”, combined with medieval Polish battle hymn “Bogurodzica”
• Premiere 8th November at Clifton Cathedral, conducted by David Ogden with ‘cellist Richard May
• Approx. 8 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"The Panufnik is a real find, a piece that deserves a place in the canon of contemporary classics along with works by composers like Mortensen and Whitacre, which it resembles in its ecstatic lyricism."

Stephen Eddins, www.allmusic.com

"Panufnik's Anthem, All Shall be Well, confirmed her excellence as a choral composer, using singable but intriguing harmonies and relishing in sudden dynamic shifts. Exultate's affection for this work was always clear, and they produced a beautiful sound."

Paul Kilbey, www.bachtrack.com

• Commissioned by Stuttgart Staatsoper
• Prelude inspired by traditional Bohemian "mad dance"
• Premiere will be 8th and 9th of March 2009 at Stuttgart Staatsoper with conductor Manfred Honeck
• Approx 7 – 8 mins
• buy or hire here

"Ms Panufnik combines Slavic 2 and 3 rhythms to form a cleverly built architecture of sound."

ukö - Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 9 March 2009

• words: William Wordsworth "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802"
• Commissioned by NMC as part of it's Songbook CD project
• Premiere with Susan Bickley & Iain Burnside 1st April 2009 at King's Place
• Approx. 3 mins
• buy here

“.. The finest songs, as always, were those in which music respects words, and sound and are inextricable. Elias’s contribution ranks among their number, as does Roxanna Panufnik’s majestic Wordsworth setting That Mighty Heart,... “

Tim Ashley, The Guardian

“Other, subtler, composers moved and charmed us by not forgetting the old-fashioned virtues: lyrical vocal lines; form and function unified; a willingness not to show off. (other composers listed) Roxanna Panufnik all shaped memorable and useful songs that treated their texts and the audience with respect.”

Geoff Brown, The Times

• commissioned by the Mobius Ensemble as part of their 10th birthday celebrations
• premiered by Philippe Honoré and the Mobius Enslembe at Wigmore Hall, London 22nd March 2008
• based on the character of the Rose in Le Petit Prince (by Antoine de St Exupéry)
• approx. 5 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

“… Solo violin phrases echoed by other instruments, until the echoes coalesced into a luscious accompaniment.”

Richard Morrison, The Times

• Words: William Shakespeare Sonnet 97 'How like a winter has my absence been'.
• Commissioned by the 2008 Temple Festival
• Premiered by Nathan Vale, Andrew Littlemore and Julius Drake 3rd June, 2008
• Approx. 7 mins
• buy here

“It is exquisite in its subtle and evocative word setting, allowing voice, piano and horn opportunity to explore the emotional depth and subtleties of the sonnet. The result is a hauntingly beautiful new song demonstrating Panufnik’s mastery of vocal and instrumental writing.”

Kenneth Richardson, Festival Director, 2008 Temple Festival

• commissioned by the Dante String Quartet
• based on Canto 23 of Dante’s Paradiso, from the Divine Comedy
• words translated by Robin Kirkpatrick
• to be premiered by the commissioners, 10.05.08 at King’s College, Cambridge with the resident choir, conducted by Stephen Cleobury
• approx. 11 minutes without choir and 12 minutes with choir
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

“… It was for me a rarity to be listening to completely current modern classical music, and I have to say I was slightly surprised by how much I managed to enjoy it when forced to listen properly. Dissonant and almost astructural, certainly, but also so wonderfully rich and with such wonderfully disturbing emotional currents and quite simply very beautiful in parts.”

Tzozen Blog

• Words: Shakespeare's Sonnet 29
• Private commission
• Approx. 5 mins
• buy here

• Opera from the original Harpsichord score by Dr. Samuel Arnold arranged and orchestrated with a blend of steel pans and 18th century authenticity.
• Based on a Barbadian legend-one of the first anti-slavery plays ever written in the 18th Century.
• Commissioned and performed by the Holders Season, Barbados 15th March 1997.

"a stirring experience… Inkle and Yarico is a gem to be exploited"

Anthony Thorncroft, Financial Times

"The melodies, by Samuel Arnold, were harmonised and orchestrated in an engagingly quirky manner by Roxanna Panufnik and the evening was brought to a thrilling conclusion by a splendid calypso employing every acrobat, juggler and fire-eater on the island"

Humphrey Burton, Classic FM Magazine

• Orchestrated version of string quartet
• (see chamber/Instrumental page for more details)
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"Panufnik's opening theme, with its strange major/minor bitonality is strangely haunting, his daughter's middle section develops this to create more complex textures. The result is a highly effective string piece."

www.planethugill.com

• highly dramatic text by Richard Stilgoe, based on lone yachtsman Tony Bullimore's 5 days under the upturned hull of his boat, in the Southern Ocean (true story!)
• optional educational element - juxtaposable add-on parts for a variety of instruments approx. grade 3 standard
• commissioned by Brunel University and the Maggini Quartet with funding from ABTA
• 25 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

"Roxanna Panufnik's brilliantly crafted score for wind ensemble complements Stilgoe's skills as narrator. The music is shot through with wit and no little drama, lifting it way above the level of underscoring to reach high in the direction of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale or Poulenc's Babar the Elephant."

Album of the Week, Music Week, 5 July 2003

• Also version for clarinet string quartet and piano
• Commissioned by EOS as a companion piece to Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire First performed 22nd March 1996
• 5 minutes

• Text: Christina Jones
• Time Piece is about the upper floor of a museum where the largest collection of clocks in the country is housed. Working late one night, Miss Patina the curator discovers she is not alone. Time stands still-even the talkative clocks are silenced by the mysterious visitor...
• Commissioned by Theatre Royal and Opera Works
• First performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, 26th August 1995. Directed by Wilf Judd and conducted by Michael Finnissy.
• 7 minutes

• commissioned by Autumn in Malvern Festival & Music at Oxford for Catherine Beynon
• premiered 1 November 2001 at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford by Catherine Beynon and Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Nicholas Cleobury
• 15 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• hire here

"Powers and Dominions (…) described by the composer as a 'concertino'. But it says more than many grander works. (…) Panufnik's individual voice comes through from the start as her thematic ideas take shape, but it is only as the work is lulled hypnotically towards its close that all the themes fall perfectly into place; the music is never obvious but instantly likeable."

John Allison, The Times, 6 November 2001

"… a ravishingly lucid creation (…) the effect was like an aural tapestry of constantly shifting colours and textures, occasionally punctuated by moments of dramatic intensity and great beauty - quite magical."

David Hart, Birmingham Post, 7 November 2001

"Roxanna Panufnik pushes one instrument to its limits in her new concertino for harp, one of her strongest achievements yet (…) Panufnik exploits both the familiar, ravishing flourishes and the strange, percussive side not normally heard (…) These were only the more arresting features of an intricate musical landscape in which a second harp played a ghostly, shadowing role, creating an aural radiance with the soloist and vibraphone. (…) Here's a piece for immediate assumption into the repertoire."

Fiona Maddocks, The Observer, 11 November 2001

• Commissioned by Farnham Festival for South West Surrey Concert Band
• Premiered 30.6.00 at Farnham Maltings
• Approx. 8 minutes

• Text: William Shakespeare (Sonnet 24).
• A love song (also available with string ensemble accompaniment)
• 4 minutes
• buy here

• A further setting from Vikram Seth's Beastly Tales anthology
• Commissioned by City of London Sinfonia for premiere at Windsor Festival 25.09.05 and BBC Hear & Now concert (inc. live Radio 3 broadcast) at Cadogan Hall 26.09.05.
• Approx 25 mins

"Panufnik's music equals the imagination and style of (Vikram) Seth's words, catching the humour and characterisation in her impressive orchestration, not to mention the subtle turns of phrase and quick changes of mood. (…) This work is thoroughly entertaining, musically satisfying and a lot of fun."

Manus Carey, MUSICAL OPINION

"… The Crocodile and the Monkey, a setting by the brightly talented Roxanna Panufnik of an Indian folk tale recounted in poetry by Vikram Seth.”
“Panufnik’s illustrative flourishes captured the ear through … Lunge, grab, snap, drowning, slaughter: such words always pricked an imaginative response.”

The Times, 12 July 2002

"…Panufnik calls upon one ravishing, ear-tweaking sonority after another, often with a sensuality that is hauntingly Ravelian at times, enlivened by a propulsiveness and vocal directness that is no less reminiscent of early Boulez. …and yet at all times Panufnik retains her own unmistakeable identity, encompassing a vast variety of moods from the lugubriousness of the tortoise to a stunning evocation of frog-calls… Bearing in mind that these exuberantly brilliant scores… the resounding success of this recording should hardly come as any surprise. The recording captures the palpable sense of occasion with just the right degree of warmth and ambient detail."

Julian Haylock, International Record Review

"Panufnik cleverly conjures up a different sound-world for each story… based on the characteristics of the animals involved… her vocal settings of the verse are highly responsive to the wit of the words… Conductor Sian Edwards draws ripe performances from all concerned, with the full range of Panufnik's imagination exploited by the CLS (City of London Sinfonia) players…a delight for children of all ages."

Matthew Rye, The Telegraph

• a haunting depiction of a lone bird on the wind
• first performed October 1997
• 5 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• A beautifully poignant and haunting setting of the Prayer to the Virgin of Skempe by the Polish poet Jerzy Pietrkiewicz. Completion of a song by Andrzej Panufnik
• Commissioned by the AI Bustan Festival for their 1999 Polish Season (also version for string quartet see under chamber)
• 5 minutes

"Panufnik's opening theme, with its strange major/minor bitonality is strangely haunting, his daughter's middle section develops this to create more complex textures. The result is a highly effective string piece."

www.planethugill.com

• Setting of Vikram Seth's The Crocodile and the Monkey from his Beastly Tales anthology
• Commissioned by the BBC for Patricia Rozario and the City of London Sinfonia for performances around the country in May 2002 (and subsequent BBC Radio 3 broadcast)
• Version for soprano only and orchestra also available
• 20 minutes

"… The Crocodile and the Monkey, a setting by the brightly talented Roxanna Panufnik of an Indian folk tale recounted in poetry by Vikram Seth.”

The Times, 12 July 2002

• commissioned and first performed by Triangulus 1995/6
• approx. 8 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

• text: Mel Cox (also version for Flute Solo and Bb Clarinet Solo) A haunting depiction of a lone bird on the wind First performed October 1997 (also available with clarinet in Bb accompaniment)
• 5 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• Another setting from Vikram Seth's Beastly Tales anthology.
• Commissioned by City of London Sinfonia - to be premiered at Bury St Edmunds Festival 17.05.03
• Approx 15 mins
• hire here

• Arrangement of original anthem (see choral for details)
• Approx 5 minutes
• buy here

• see chamber page for details
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

"Roxanna Panufnik's brilliantly crafted score for wind ensemble complements Stilgoe's skills as narrator. The music is shot through with wit and no little drama, lifting it way above the level of underscoring to reach high in the direction of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale or Poulenc's Babar the Elephant."

Album of the Week, Music Week, 5 July 2003

• 1. Letter 1 - Private Joe Wood
  2. And when I Die (traditional)
  3. The Letter - Wilfred Owen
  4. From Albert to Bapaume - Alec Waugh
  5. Letter 2 - Private Joe Wood
• Setting of two letters from Private Joe to his sister at home, from WW1 battleground at Ypres, August 1917 - interspersed with three war poems.
• Commissioned by Warwick & Leamington Festival for Nigel Cliffe and Schidlof String Quartet. (also for string quartet)
• Approx 18 minutes
• buy or hire here

"It was (Nigel) Cliffe's great-uncle, killed near Ypres, who furnished Panufnik with the launch-pad for her new piece. Private Joe, a compact five-section song cycle, is framed by two touchingly humdrum letters home from a doomed British Tommy. His opening appeal is pounded home by Debussian ostinati and a strongly delineated, rather effectively shaped vocal line. Thicker clusterings, comic repetitions and drunken slurrings underline the erratic, scherzoid black humour of "And when I die". "The Letter" is a strikingly varied, poignant, nervy setting of less familiar Wilfred Owen.

With his tragically-wrought feminine endings ("smutted", "ragged") and ominous iterations ("solitary and black"), Cliffe constantly confirms the operatic aspect of the writing : kit him up, hollow his eyes and we would be in the genre of Maxwell Davies music theatre. The ending is tragic clown - part lyrical, part howling, obsessive and mad. A marked achievement, above all because Panufnik has the range, talent and imagination to skirt the threatened kitsch."

Roderick Dunnett, The Independent

• Commissioned by and premiered on 19.12.03 at Saarbrucke Kammerkonzerte (Germany) for Ewa Kupiec
• Variations on a Polish folk theme
• Approx. 8 mins
• special arrangement for Silesian String Quartet, to be premiered in April 2007, Katowice, Poland.
• buy here

"All of this music, in the skill, inspiration, clarity and altogether extraordinarily meticulous performance of the excellent pianist Clare Hammond, gives the impression of a pure, unsullied innocence and beauty, aided by the magnificent sounds of BIS’ SACD edition."

Artem Avatinian, Gramophone Russia

• song cycle on poetry by Wendy Cope
• commissioned by Harriet Fraser to be premiered at Cheltenham International Festival of Music 15.07.04
• approx. 22 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"The ability to be witty and serious at the same time is both rare & admirable and forms the chief quality of If I don't Know, an engaging song-cycle by Roxanna Panufnik… a spirited and delightfully witty setting … There are many imaginative, naturalistic touches reflecting the composer's experience in choral and vocal composition… "

Malcolm Miller, TEMPO Magazine

"The music mirrored the sentiments expressed in the poetry brilliantly. The dreamy By the Round Pond, was especially evocative."

Cheltenham Echo, 2004

"…her setting captured the blend of serious and witty sentiment… showing her inspired talent for dramatic gesture, often emphasising a word or phrase either in cabaret-style speech or a throwaway motif."

Musical Opinion

• Text: George Herbert c.1633
• Commissioned by the Park Lane Group First performed QEH,London 18th October 1992 (Sir Andrzej Panufnik memorial concert) (N.B. also version with piano accompaniment) (Piano reduction available)
• 6 minutes
• buy or hire here

"Add to the roster of goodies, Virtue which is a score of harmonic finesse and eloquence."

Christopher Grier, Evening Standard

"…A tenderly expressive song…"

Edward Greenfield, The Guardian

"…a very moving tribute … very lovely piece … hypnotic little changes of harmony … an individual work."

On Air, BBC Radio 3

• commissioned by Han-Na Chang
• to be premiered by her in Montreal, September 2007 (tbc)
• approx. 12 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• Text: Ogden Nash from Candy is Dandy A nightmare on a well known chopsticks theme!
• Commissioned by David Howells for children's concert, Purcell Room, South Bank, London, 8th January 1995
• 5 minutes

"The young and talented composer, Roxanna Panufnik, had been ask to compose… music on a well-known chopsticks theme to poems by Ogden Nash, and on this performance alone she demonstrated a keen ear for the written (and spoken) text. Her music was highly amusing, teasingly chromatic and imaginative …"

Tim Stein, Ham & High (Hampstead & Highgate Express)

• Ballet score commissioned by English National Ballet and Wratislavia Cantans
• Scenario by choreographer Cathy Marston
• Concert premiere 24.10.03 conducted by Mariusz Smolij and with Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra
• Ballet premier 2005 at Sadler's Wells, London
• 30 mins

• See vocal page for details
• 5 minutes

• Text: George Herbert c.1633
• Commissioned by the Park Lane Group First performed QEH, London 18th October 1992 (Sir Andrzej Panufnik memorial concert) (N.B. also version with piano accompaniment) (Piano reduction available)
• 6 minutes
• buy or hire here

"Add to the roster of goodies, Virtue which is a score of harmonic finesse and eloquence."

Christopher Grier, Evening Standard

"…A tenderly expressive song…"

Edward Greenfield, The Guardian

"…a very moving tribute … very lovely piece … hypnotic little changes of harmony … an individual work."

On Air, BBC Radio 3

• Commissioned by Savannah Music Festival (Georgia, USA) for Daniel Hope
• Premier 25.03.05 cond. John Axelrod
• Based on the bible story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of his faith - using Christian, Islamic and Jewish music.
• Approx. 15 mins.
• buy or hire here

"Panufnik's concerto is substantial and ear-catching… Like much of the composer's music, the 17-minute concerto's virtues are modesty, craft and understated elegance."

Financial Times

• commissioned by the Summer Music Society of Dorset for Douglas Boyd & the Vellinger String Quartet
• based on the writings of Aung San Suu Kyi
• premiere at Minterne, 02.10.04
• approx. 12 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• 1. Letter 1 - Private Joe Wood
  2. And when I Die (traditional)
  3. The Letter - Wilfred Owen
  4. From Albert to Bapaume - Alec Waugh
  5. Letter 2 - Private Joe Wood
• Setting of two letters from Private Joe to his sister at home, from WW1 battleground at Ypres, August 1917 - interspersed with three war poems.
• Commissioned by Warwick & Leamington Festival for Nigel Cliffe and Schidlof String Quartet. (also for string orchestra)
• Approx 18 minutes

"It was (Nigel) Cliffe's great-uncle, killed near Ypres, who furnished Panufnik with the launch-pad for her new piece. Private Joe, a compact five-section song cycle, is framed by two touchingly humdrum letters home from a doomed British Tommy. His opening appeal is pounded home by Debussian ostinati and a strongly delineated, rather effectively shaped vocal line. Thicker clusterings, comic repetitions and drunken slurrings underline the erratic, scherzoid black humour of "And when I die". "The Letter" is a strikingly varied, poignant, nervy setting of less familiar Wilfred Owen.

With his tragically-wrought feminine endings ("smutted", "ragged") and ominous iterations ("solitary and black"), Cliffe constantly confirms the operatic aspect of the writing : kit him up, hollow his eyes and we would be in the genre of Maxwell Davies music theatre. The ending is tragic clown - part lyrical, part howling, obsessive and mad. A marked achievement, above all because Panufnik has the range, talent and imagination to skirt the threatened kitsch."

Roderick Dunnett, The Independent

• Commissioned by the John Studzinski Foundation for Westminster Cathedral Choir, on the occasion of Cardinal Basil Hume's 75th Birthday.
• First performance by Westminster Cathedral Choir and the City of London Sinfonia at Westminster Cathedral on 21st May 1998 (also with organ accompaniment; or one harp, tubular bells & organ)
• 28 minutes (N.B. also version with organ accompaniment)
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"May God richly reward her for what she has achieved, and we thank her for enhancing our prayer. She is helping us to pierce in some manner the cloud which separates us from Him, the Holy One to whom all glory and honour must be given."

Cardinal Basil Hume OBE, homily at the premiere 21st May 1998

"Some CDs give you interest, some pleasure, and a very few deliver both in such abundance it's worrying. This disc alarms me, it's so comprehensively attractive. Until now, the claim to fame of Roxanna Panufnik has largely been as the daughter of the composer Andrzej. But with her Mass setting - written for Cardinal Hume before his death - she emerges as a major figure in her own right… Fiercely recommended."

Michael White, The Independent on Sunday, 7 November 1999.

"At its premiere last year, Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass caused quite a stir; and its recording by Westminster Cathedral Choir under James O'Donnell shows why. The daughter of Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik has her own individual voice - tonal, expressive, keenly spiced with chromatic harmony, and finding room within a seven-movement English-language Mass setting for such haunting ideas as the harp's flowing accompaniment to the Gloria, while elsewhere strings and bells surround the voices like a halo."

Malcolm Hayes, Classic FM Magazine, October 1999

"…a jewel… Panufnik's exquisite Mass setting - a relative model of clarity, and written from the heart - was the best music on offer in London… It was clear that the piece is an absolute entity, and as a musical composition stands on its own, coherent and convincing. And it is a beautiful composition, sensitively orchestrated… It's ethos is romantic but never over the top, sweet but unsentimental, and characterised by rich, gentle harmonies and a devotional, quietly fervent sense of atmosphere. It also has a number of melodic hooks that are instantly memorable. This, like the best of it's type, is a Mass that will travel and be taken up - for purely musical performance - by a range of choirs and chamber orchestras. It's ravishing."

Michael Tumelty, The Glasgow Herald, May 1999

Roxanna Panufnik "is one of the country's most sought-after composers. Last year she was commissioned to write Westminster Mass to celebrate Cardinal Hume's 75th birthday… It's a moving tribute to a man who was genuinely loved by people of all faiths. Panufnik puts her study of the harp to good use and, with the superb singing of the Westminster Cathedral Choir, creates a truly heavenly sound."

Nick Bailey, Classic FM Magazine, November 1999

"Conceived for liturgical use - though including an orchestra of strings, harps and bells - there are some effective and affecting passages, such as the beautiful chords which the choir sings at the start of the Gloria. There is warmth and expression."

Classic CD, December 1999

"Bells accompany the opening of Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass and confer upon it an immediately distinctive identity… Most immediately attractive is the Sanctus: not the usual awe-struck worship but a happy gambolling of children before a throne decked for Christmas… On early and necessarily brief acquaintance it seems an intriguing compound in style and appeal; and the first impression is at least memorable."

Gramophone, November 1999

"This is wonderful music: radiant, soaring, deeply felt… Roxanna Panufnik's command of choral texture is remarkably assured, and she avoids false rhetoric, preferring a calmly judicious approach to the demands of her liturgical text. In spite of the innumerable both good and bad precedents confronting her she has the assurance to make her own distinctive approach, especially in the Sanctus and Agnus Dei. This is a work which deserves international recognition and I look forward to hearing it again soon"

Geoffrey Crankshaw, Musical Opinion

"The Westminster Mass is extremely beautiful… here was something unarguably spiritual, something which forced you to take the entire proceedings seriously… passing dissonances resolve into consonant harmonies that break through like a shaft of light before they are resolved again… I would put a few bob on the Westminster Mass achieving a good deal of popularity in performance: it is well within the capacity of a good amateur choir and must be a most thoroughly enjoyable sing. Panufnik's publishers, Kalmus, could well have a hit on their hands."

Martin Anderson, Tempo

"Created by the Cathedral Choir in May 1998, the Westminster Mass of the young and beautiful Roxanna Panufnik - of which only the Deus, Deus meus has already been recorded (by the same artist, with Koch) - is a delicious surprise, a cathedral of contrasts embellished with subtly dissonant harmonies. The melodic lines are clear and very easy to read, the orchestration delicate, well thought out and original (with harps and bells). Here we have fresh, devilishly expressive music, music which never spurns the text, but paints it effectively. The famous Westminster Cathedral Choir trebles perform this work with talent, using their head voice with such inimitable resonance, and with strength…"

Diapaison, December 1999

• Commissioned by Evelyn Nallen & David Gordon
• First performance the Barnwell Theatre Cambridge, 20.1.01
• Approx. 5 minutes
• buy here

• See orchestral page for details

"Panufnik's music equals the imagination and style of (Vikram) Seth's words, catching the humour and characterisation in her impressive orchestration, not to mention the subtle turns of phrase and quick changes of mood. (…) This work is thoroughly entertaining, musically satisfying and a lot of fun."

Manus Carey, MUSICAL OPINION

"… The Crocodile and the Monkey, a setting by the brightly talented Roxanna Panufnik of an Indian folk tale recounted in poetry by Vikram Seth.”
“Panufnik’s illustrative flourishes captured the ear through … Lunge, grab, snap, drowning, slaughter: such words always pricked an imaginative response.”

The Times, 12 July 2002

"…Panufnik calls upon one ravishing, ear-tweaking sonority after another, often with a sensuality that is hauntingly Ravelian at times, enlivened by a propulsiveness and vocal directness that is no less reminiscent of early Boulez. …and yet at all times Panufnik retains her own unmistakeable identity, encompassing a vast variety of moods from the lugubriousness of the tortoise to a stunning evocation of frog-calls… Bearing in mind that these exuberantly brilliant scores… the resounding success of this recording should hardly come as any surprise. The recording captures the palpable sense of occasion with just the right degree of warmth and ambient detail."

Julian Haylock, International Record Review

"Panufnik cleverly conjures up a different sound-world for each story… based on the characteristics of the animals involved… her vocal settings of the verse are highly responsive to the wit of the words… Conductor Sian Edwards draws ripe performances from all concerned, with the full range of Panufnik's imagination exploited by the CLS (City of London Sinfonia) players…a delight for children of all ages."

Matthew Rye, The Telegraph

• Eccentric arrangement and extension of Rimsky-Korsakoff's famous bon-bon
• Commissioned by Han-Na Chang for a tour of Korea August 2005 with memebers of the Berlin Philhamonic, cond. by Ion Marin
• Approx. 3 mins
• hire here

• based on Viola's famous "Make me a willow cabin" speech from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
• optional juxtaposable part for upper voices (possible for children)
• commissioned and first performed by the Maggini String Quartet 1995
• approx. 15 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"From the hushed sound of ethereal breezes to whistles and shimmering glissandos, this is an exciting composition worth many another hearing"

Marion Cox, Dorset Evening Echo

"haunting and atmospheric in its melancholy… an intriguing combination of illustration and commentary… a telling mixture of emotionally manipulated harmonies and communicative string devices, eloquently textured, it adds a resourcefully deployed childrens' chorus, running through a gamut of vocal techniques"

Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

• Text by Andrew Bernard
• Love song commissioned by the lyricist for his wife's 40th birthday
• 4 mins
• buy here

• Commissioned by the Waynflete Singers, with an orchestration version of Spring (1997)
• Setting of poem by Christina Rosetti
• Premiere will be on 28th March 2009 with London Mozart Players, cond. Andrew Lumsden
• Approx. 7 – 8 mins
• hire here

"…both works revealed a remarkable ear for instrumental and choral scoring, ranging from the ultra-economical to the most lush. (…) The new piece is marked "languorously" and aptly matched the season. It certainly warmed the hearts of an appreciative audience on a cold eve of British Summer Time."

Derek Beck, Hampshire Chronicle

• Words: Ikkyū Sōyun (15th century Zen master, mostly in English with some Japanese)
• Commissioned and premiered by Kiku Day and the Nonsuch Singers
• First performed 13th March 2008 at St John’s Smith Square, London
• Approx. 20 mins
• buy here

• Words: Padre Pio, trans. Stephen Macklow-Smith, adapted by Jessica Duchen
• Commissioned by the Genesis Foundation alongside other settings of the same prayer by Will Todd and James Macmillan
• Premiered at Westminster Cathedral with The Sixteen 3rd June 2008
• available on CD "Padre Pio: Prayer" on The Sixteen's CORO label
• Approx. 10 mins
• buy here

“… ethereal and beseeching…”

Geoffrey Norris, The Telegraph

"Panufnik's (setting of Stay with Me) is more sensuous and opulently textured… Panufnik's Prayer proves another attractive find."

Andrew Achenbach, GRAMOPHONE Magazine

"From its dramatic cri de coeur opening, Panufnik’s version, for double choir and organ, was an almost feverish outpouring. Lingering chords in the cathedral’s acoustic accentuated the sense of mystery, and an almost pained chromaticism assisted in plumbing the depths of anguish and fear. (…) Panufnik almost ended with a major choir; but this resolution might have suggested too much certainty after the preceding turmoil, and the work concluded on a question mark."

Maggie Hamilton, CHOIR & ORGAN

“… grandly transcendental … that floated in blocked discords with delayed resolution, clouding the sonorities like aural incense.”

Michael White, The Catholic Herald

• Commissioned by Fine Arts Brass Ensemble
• First performed by the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble at Warwick & Leamington Festival 11.7.01.
• Approx. 15 minutes
• buy here

• (see Chamber/Instrumental page for details)
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

“… It was for me a rarity to be listening to completely current modern classical music, and I have to say I was slightly surprised by how much I managed to enjoy it when forced to listen properly. Dissonant and almost astructural, certainly, but also so wonderfully rich and with such wonderfully disturbing emotional currents and quite simply very beautiful in parts.”

Tzozen Blog

• Commissioned by All Saints Festival, Fulham to celebrate renovation of new organ at All Saints Church
• First performed by John Scott 23.05.02
• Approx. 1 min
• buy here

• words: Rumi
• commissioned by Downe House Choral to celebrate the school's centenary
• premiered by them with Anthony Cain (cond.) and Kate Milne (harp) on 1st November, 2007 at St Paul's Cathedral, London
• approx 5 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"One might well ask whether there is a need for another recording of Westminster Mass but listening to this disc will make it clear that it was a very good idea. …a very fine Kyrie cum Jublio for organ, performed by Lee Ward, which makes one long to hear what else the composer might do for the instrument. …"Sleep little Jesus" abounds in impressive choral effects aimed at suggesting "a psychedelic effect of angels looking down from heaven upon the sleeping Jesus" that certainly distances it from more conventional Christmas fare. Impressive indeed."

Ivan Moody, Gramophone

"Panufnik's sacred writing is enhanced by her deeply spiritual thought processes and a refreshingly unusual approach to the text."

Shirley Ratcliffe, Choir & Organ

"The Westminster Mass, which (…) exists in versions for organ and for orchestra, but the present version, for organ, bells, and harp along with the choir, is especially fortunate; the mass is structured, both in obvious ways and in subtler ones, around church-bell patterns, and the harp brings these out beautifully. It's an especially effective presentation of Panufnik's style, which can be quite dissonant but relies on the expansion of basic materials in a way that's easily accessible. The version of the Ave Maria heard here is also new, and in fact was made expressly for this recording. This is another high point, showcasing Panufnik's distinctive and often personal readings of familiar texts; in place of the familiar Schubertian mood here, she offers a setting that's both mystical and occasionally explosive. …A top-notch job all around."

James Manheim, www.dilletantemusic.com

"Panufnik deliberately avoids the trite, choosing instead to employ dissonance that is still serene. The music fills the space and embraces extraneous sound; while I was listening, the local church bells, the howling wind, my wife’s computer antiphonal sounds, as well as dogs barking outside, were absorbed by the music. This democracy of sound retains the sacred mood but employs a contrasting subtext of chromatic harmony. Also represented here are some excellent songs and excerpts, including a lovely Sleep Little Jesus , a unique Ave Maria , and a rousing Jesus Christ Is Born Today . The sound quality is enhanced by the natural acoustics of the Hampstead Parish Church."

David Wolman, www.fanfaremag.com

• Words: from Psalm 110
• Commissioned by the Waltham Singers to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Andrew Fardell as their conductor.
• Premiere will be with the artsites above, accompanied by the Maggini Quartet (plus a double bass) on 1st March, 2008)
• Approx. 10 mins
• view perusal score here
• buy here

• amalgamated texts from Book of Prayer and the Bible (Authorised Version)
• commissioned by St Edmundsbury Cathedral
• premiere 06.05.07
• 5 -6 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• Christmas Carol (words: Anon)
• Commissioned by Newhall School Choir to be premiered by them at the Cathedral of St. Mary & St. Helen, Brentwood, Essex 9th December, 2005
• Approx. 3mins
• Buy here

• commissioned by & for Downe House Choral
• Latin text
• approx. 4 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• see instrumental page for details
• approx 15 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"What is so impressive about Olivia is its composer's surefootedness in dealing with the quartet medium. Her intuitive grasp of large-scale form is fluent enough for composers twice her age (she is not yet 30) to be proud of… The writing here truly has the prerequisite dialogue of four equals of a real string quartet… Olivia is quite the finest composition of Roxanna Panufnik's that I have heard to date. It shows considerable technical resources in its 16 or so minutes and, expressively, catches perfectly the complex irony and double-edged attraction in Shakespeare's play."

Guy Rickards, Tempo

"…highly original and intensely emotional… a Shakespeare-inspired contemplation with narrative elements and a deeply romantic undertone (with integrated humming of the musicians and the final, aching cry on the viola particularly fine touches)…"

Michael Tumelty, The Glasgow Herald

• commissioned by the John Studzinski Foundation for Westminster Cathedral Choir, on the occasion of Cardinal Basil Hume's 75th Birthday
• first performance by Westminster Cathedral Choir and the City of London Sinfonia at Westminster Cathedral on 21st May 1998 (also with organ accompaniment; or one harp, tubular bells & organ)
• recorded by Teldec/Warner Classics
• 28 minutes (N.B. also version with organ accompaniment)
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"May God richly reward her for what she has achieved, and we thank her for enhancing our prayer. She is helping us to pierce in some manner the cloud which separates us from Him, the Holy One to whom all glory and honour must be given."

Cardinal Basil Hume OBE, homily at the premiere 21st May 1998

"Some CDs give you interest, some pleasure, and a very few deliver both in such abundance it's worrying. This disc alarms me, it's so comprehensively attractive. Until now, the claim to fame of Roxanna Panufnik has largely been as the daughter of the composer Andrzej. But with her Mass setting - written for Cardinal Hume before his death - she emerges as a major figure in her own right… Fiercely recommended."

Michael White, The Independent on Sunday, 7 November 1999

"At its premiere last year, Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass caused quite a stir; and its recording by Westminster Cathedral Choir under James O'Donnell shows why. The daughter of Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik has her own individual voice - tonal, expressive, keenly spiced with chromatic harmony, and finding room within a seven-movement English-language Mass setting for such haunting ideas as the harp's flowing accompaniment to the Gloria, while elsewhere strings and bells surround the voices like a halo."

Malcolm Hayes, Classic FM Magazine, October 1999

"…a jewel… Panufnik's exquisite Mass setting - a relative model of clarity, and written from the heart - was the best music on offer in London… It was clear that the piece is an absolute entity, and as a musical composition stands on its own, coherent and convincing. And it is a beautiful composition, sensitively orchestrated… It's ethos is romantic but never over the top, sweet but unsentimental, and characterised by rich, gentle harmonies and a devotional, quietly fervent sense of atmosphere. It also has a number of melodic hooks that are instantly memorable. This, like the best of it's type, is a Mass that will travel and be taken up - for purely musical performance - by a range of choirs and chamber orchestras. It's ravishing."

Michael Tumelty, The Glasgow Herald, May 1999

Roxanna Panufnik "is one of the country's most sought-after composers. Last year she was commissioned to write Westminster Mass to celebrate Cardinal Hume's 75th birthday… It's a moving tribute to a man who was genuinely loved by people of all faiths. Panufnik puts her study of the harp to good use and, with the superb singing of the Westminster Cathedral Choir, creates a truly heavenly sound."

Nick Bailey, Classic FM Magazine, November 1999

"Conceived for liturgical use - though including an orchestra of strings, harps and bells - there are some effective and affecting passages, such as the beautiful chords which the choir sings at the start of the Gloria. There is warmth and expression."

Classic CD, December 1999

"Bells accompany the opening of Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass and confer upon it an immediately distinctive identity… Most immediately attractive is the Sanctus: not the usual awe-struck worship but a happy gambolling of children before a throne decked for Christmas… On early and necessarily brief acquaintance it seems an intriguing compound in style and appeal; and the first impression is at least memorable."

Gramophone, November 1999

"This is wonderful music: radiant, soaring, deeply felt… Roxanna Panufnik's command of choral texture is remarkably assured, and she avoids false rhetoric, preferring a calmly judicious approach to the demands of her liturgical text. In spite of the innumerable both good and bad precedents confronting her she has the assurance to make her own distinctive approach, especially in the Sanctus and Agnus Dei. This is a work which deserves international recognition and I look forward to hearing it again soon"

Geoffrey Crankshaw, Musical Opinion

"The Westminster Mass is extremely beautiful… here was something unarguably spiritual, something which forced you to take the entire proceedings seriously… passing dissonances resolve into consonant harmonies that break through like a shaft of light before they are resolved again… I would put a few bob on the Westminster Mass achieving a good deal of popularity in performance: it is well within the capacity of a good amateur choir and must be a most thoroughly enjoyable sing. Panufnik's publishers, Kalmus, could well have a hit on their hands."

Martin Anderson, Tempo

"Created by the Cathedral Choir in May 1998, the Westminster Mass of the young and beautiful Roxanna Panufnik - of which only the Deus, Deus meus has already been recorded (by the same artist, with Koch) - is a delicious surprise, a cathedral of contrasts embellished with subtly dissonant harmonies. The melodic lines are clear and very easy to read, the orchestration delicate, well thought out and original (with harps and bells). Here we have fresh, devilishly expressive music, music which never spurns the text, but paints it effectively. The famous Westminster Cathedral Choir trebles perform this work with talent, using their head voice with such inimitable resonance, and with strength…"

Diapaison, December 1999

• Everything that spring symbolizes a riotous celebration of lush new life.
• Commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts for the Summer Exhibition
• First performed by the choir of St. James's Church, Piccadilly, London 21st May 1997
• 8 minutes
• hire here

• Arrangement of traditional Polish Christmas carol, Lulajze Jezuniu, for BBC Singers Christmas CD.
• Approx 3 minutes
• Buy here

• Words by George Herbert
• Commissioned by the Festival of St Cecilia for combined choirs of Westminster Abbey, Westminster and St Paul's Cathedrals
• First performance St. Paul's Cathedral 22.11.00
• Approx 5 minutes
• Buy here

• Commissioned by Madeleine Mitchell & The Joyful Company of Singers
• Based on Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquoy
• Approx 9 minutes
• Buy here

• commissioned by and dedicated to Douai Abbey Choir
• Mass text in Latin - Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus & Benedictus, Agnus Dei - with optional acclamation and doxdology
• 14 minutes
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

• Words: Thomas Nashe
• Commissioned by ABRSM publishing (ltd.)
• Approx 5 minutes
• Buy here

• Commissioned by Worth School, Surrey
• First performance: 9th December, 2002
• Buy here

• words: Two Chorale-Preludes by Geoffrey Hill and Psalm 96(95) O Sing to the Lord verses 1 - 6
• commissioned and premiered by Cappella Nova at Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh 09.06.06
• approx. 14 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy here

"In the Ave Regina Coelorum (Hail Queen of Heaven) Panufnik creates impressive swirls of tonal colour, smudging the borders between notes with half tones and overtones which are underpinned by a restless dissonance. It was an inspired touch to overlay the last stanza with words from the 11th-century poet Hermann the Lame pleading to the Virgin for mercy. Panufnik's dynamic setting of Psalm 96 O Sing to the Lord in the middle section was quite thrilling and paved the way for the concluding Te Lucis Ante Terminum (Before the End of the Day), which exuded warmth and optimism."

Susan Nickells, The Scotsman

• words: 1 Corinthians 13 and Love is the Master by Rumi, trans. Andrew Harvey
• commissioned and to be premiered by the Choral Arts Society, Philadelphia, USA on 24.03.07
• approx. 20 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

“A rich offering on a theme of interfaith connectivity. The Japanese lullaby-inspired Zen Love Song and the title work Love Abide are totally absorbing.” 

BBC Music Magazine, 5 stars

"With its outspoken positive approach, Love Abide is like a musical bouquet of healing herbs. Roxana Panufnuik’s beautifully crafted music is inventive and truly enjoyable. The Colla Voce Singers produce singing of exceptional quality, with impressive control and a very good balance.”

Remy Franck, www.pizzicato.lu, 5 stars

“If I had to choose a ‘glass-half-full’  contemporary composer, then Roxanna Panufnik would be near the top of my list. Her Music exudes openness and inclusivity, and it is in the choral settings where hope and positivity - two words that lie at the heart of her work - are most keenly felt. … much of her recent work can be seen to be built on the solid foundations laid down on this impressively varied and diverse collection. A music of hope in dark and troubled times.”

Pwyll ap Siôn, Gramophone Magazine

"It’s a wonderful fusion of choral traditions and mysticism in three religions, very much at the centre of her preoccupations with the interstices of faith. I loved it."

Norman Lebrecht, artsjournal.com/slippeddisc

"A potent inter-faith mix of Zen, Christian, Sufi and Hebrew. Tasty listening… very brightly sung…"

Geoff Brown, BBC Music Magazine

"…with fragments of Spanish Sephardic chant, Christian plainsong, Sufi rhythms and Japanese lullaby, the results are mesmerising. The finale was a choral rendition of Love Endureth by British a cappella group VOCES8 that left us spellbound."

Katharine Fry, loose-lips.com

(Love is the Master) "Panufnik's work was a fascinating piece as the composer has used Sufi rhythms and scales to give the piece a tempting exoticism; it opens with infectious rhythms in the strings over which the choir sing smoother, more densely texture choral lines. The whole piece has an immense propulsion which seems to go with drive of the words."

hugill.blogspot.co.uk

"Sublime."

John Clare, Music Programmer/Host, WITF-FM 89.5

“Compare that (Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang) with Roxanna Panufnik's excellent Love Abide (commissioned by Choral Arts and premiered Saturday): While Mendelssohn reached new levels of homogeneity in Lobgesang, the British Panufnik shaded her music with sensual Turkish inflections. There was also uncompromising subtlety. The emptiness of life without love conveyed with a single, lonely harp note. There's pain in this music when the text confronts giving up the low road for the high - a decision the sheltered Mendelssohn perhaps never needed to make.”

David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Panufnik here proffered a score of great and imaginative beauty (…) the piece made a powerful impression on the audience of nearly 700 (…)

Panufnik is a master, herself, at combining a central core of major/minor tonality with touches of medieval modality as well as Middle Eastern and quasi-Oriental colors and rhythms to produce a vocal and instrumental texture of surpassing transparency and agile strength. The text was not so much set to music as enhanced by it. Suzanne DuPlantis sang the all-important mezzo solo with elegant projection and emotional conviction, and Glandorf elicited sensitive yet secure singing from the choir, offering a substantive societal background against which individual love blossomed.”

Michael Caruso, Chestnut Hill LOCAL

Further reviews available on loveabide.com Reviews page »

• 7 minutes for Treble or Soprano Solo and SSAATTBB a cappella choir
• buy here

• Commissioned and performed by the Ealing youth choir and Ealing symphony orchestra 5th December 1998
• 12 minutes
• buy or hire here

"…what a superb composer for choir she is. (…) More than her deft handling of choral forces, it is Panufnik's instinctive feel for those words which stands out here. (…) while there is some delicious word-painting (…) her real skill lies in an unerring ability to find, in musical language, the essence of the texts. I don't think I will be alone after hearing this disc in begging for more of Roxanna Panufnik in the catalogue."

Marc Rochester, Gramophone (Editor's Choice)

"…she selects superb words but also sets them with sensitivity, imagination and skill. The Westminster Mass has an exultant joy which looks destined to make it one of the most popular settings of the liturgy of our time."

Robert Beale, Manchester Online

"Panufnik's choral writing is full, uplifting, extremely beautiful and in turn tender and joyful."

Antonia Couling, The Singer

"The music resonates in one's head long after the disc has stopped revolving. A hugely impressive achievement, crowning a disc that proclaims a composer of very evident talent"

Ivan Moody, International Record Review

"Panufnik's harmonic palette includes gorgeous bluesiness and moments of real surprise."

Meurig Bowen, BBC Music Magazine

• Commissioned by the Vasari Singers for their 21st birthday celebration at St. John's, Smith Square (5.5.01)
• Approx 3 minutes
• Buy here

• Two movements: first is a setting of Rumi's Love is the Master (click here to see animation)
• commissioned and first performed by Choral Arts Philadelphia, with conductor Matt Glandorf 24.03.06
• recorded in a CD of the same title, Warner Classics
• approx 20 mins
• click here for perusal score
• buy or hire here

“A rich offering on a theme of interfaith connectivity. The Japanese lullaby-inspired Zen Love Song and the title work Love Abide are totally absorbing.” 

BBC Music Magazine, 5 stars

"With its outspoken positive approach, Love Abide is like a musical bouquet of healing herbs. Roxana Panufnuik’s beautifully crafted music is inventive and truly enjoyable. The Colla Voce Singers produce singing of exceptional quality, with impressive control and a very good balance.”

Remy Franck, www.pizzicato.lu, 5 stars

“If I had to choose a ‘glass-half-full’  contemporary composer, then Roxanna Panufnik would be near the top of my list. Her Music exudes openness and inclusivity, and it is in the choral settings where hope and positivity - two words that lie at the heart of her work - are most keenly felt. … much of her recent work can be seen to be built on the solid foundations laid down on this impressively varied and diverse collection. A music of hope in dark and troubled times.”

Pwyll ap Siôn, Gramophone Magazine

"It’s a wonderful fusion of choral traditions and mysticism in three religions, very much at the centre of her preoccupations with the interstices of faith. I loved it."

Norman Lebrecht, artsjournal.com/slippeddisc

"A potent inter-faith mix of Zen, Christian, Sufi and Hebrew. Tasty listening… very brightly sung…"

Geoff Brown, BBC Music Magazine

"…with fragments of Spanish Sephardic chant, Christian plainsong, Sufi rhythms and Japanese lullaby, the results are mesmerising. The finale was a choral rendition of Love Endureth by British a cappella group VOCES8 that left us spellbound."

Katharine Fry, loose-lips.com

(Love is the Master) "Panufnik's work was a fascinating piece as the composer has used Sufi rhythms and scales to give the piece a tempting exoticism; it opens with infectious rhythms in the strings over which the choir sing smoother, more densely texture choral lines. The whole piece has an immense propulsion which seems to go with drive of the words."

hugill.blogspot.co.uk

"Sublime."

John Clare, Music Programmer/Host, WITF-FM 89.5

“Compare that (Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang) with Roxanna Panufnik's excellent Love Abide (commissioned by Choral Arts and premiered Saturday): While Mendelssohn reached new levels of homogeneity in Lobgesang, the British Panufnik shaded her music with sensual Turkish inflections. There was also uncompromising subtlety. The emptiness of life without love conveyed with a single, lonely harp note. There's pain in this music when the text confronts giving up the low road for the high - a decision the sheltered Mendelssohn perhaps never needed to make.”

David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Panufnik here proffered a score of great and imaginative beauty (…) the piece made a powerful impression on the audience of nearly 700 (…)

Panufnik is a master, herself, at combining a central core of major/minor tonality with touches of medieval modality as well as Middle Eastern and quasi-Oriental colors and rhythms to produce a vocal and instrumental texture of surpassing transparency and agile strength. The text was not so much set to music as enhanced by it. Suzanne DuPlantis sang the all-important mezzo solo with elegant projection and emotional conviction, and Glandorf elicited sensitive yet secure singing from the choir, offering a substantive societal background against which individual love blossomed.”

Michael Caruso, Chestnut Hill LOCAL

Further reviews available on loveabide.com Reviews page »

• Clare Hammond - piano Complete solo piano works of Andrzej & Roxanna Panufnik

"Roxanna's own piano output compliments that of her father. Second Home's elegant, sophisticated variations on a Polish folk theme are followed by a miniature composed in memory of a family friend. Modlitwa brings father and daughter together; Andrzej's prayer setting left unfinished, the text's second verse elaborated posthumously by Roxanna. This is a fascinating, rewarding recital; both composers' pieces recall and suggest the music of others – Bartók and Lutosławski the strongest influences – but they've very distinct, personal identities. Claire Hammond's performances exude warmth and authority, and her Steinway is impeccably recorded."

Graham Rickson, www.theartsdesk.com

• An immediate and very personal reaction to the news of a dear friend’s death
• Approx 1.5 mins
• Buy here

"Her first piano piece, Second Home, weaves variations around a haunting Polish folk tune in satisfyingly scrunchy harmonies, adding variety to Hammond’s imaginative performance."

John Allison, BBC Music Magazine

"Hammond who has worked closely with Roxanna , captures both the brilliance and the brooding in these works. Modlitwa (Prayer’ 1990/99, arr 2013) was originally written for voice and keyboard; its sparse textures use mainly the upper registers, creating an ethereal quality. Second Home is Roxanna’s first piece for piano. A setting of variations on a Polish folk these, it is curiously evocative, with ample use of the pedal.”

"CJ", International Piano Magazine

"The Music Programme is a work of warm-hearted humour and outrageous satire. The most exciting compositional trick Panufnik pulls is to represent the different characters by contrasting musical styles: Bach for the Bach-obsessed Dr Lord, Mozart for the demure but sensual pianist Eleanor, sprechstimme for the 'outsider' McCray, and so on… One might imagine that this technique would lead to aural chaos, but everything is clearly bound together by Panufnik's gloriously luminous harmony and some wonderfully inventive orchestration. Everything seems pared down to the essentials in this 75-minute work, demanding the audience's attention on a very detailed level and repaying it with wit and some rapturous moments."

BBC Music Magazine, June 2000

"This is a genuine, ambitious chamber opera, accessible to an averagely informed public, and revealing all its charm to a listener who is acquainted with the history of music and has listened widely. … broad seams of humour, interesting harmonic ideas and the rich musical imagination of the composer. And above all miraculous play is made with the conventions of the world of opera, with its simplifications and identically symbolic treatment of reality and sound."

Zycie (Polish national newspaper)

"Roxanna Panufnik knows how to write vocal music. She understands the potential of the human voice and takes care to expose it in an attractive way, which is something contemporary composers often neglect."

Rzeczpospolita (Polish national newspaper)

"Far and away the most enjoyable aspect of things was Panufnik's music - nearly always engaging and often quite beautiful. Musical references abounded - clearly West African kora and xylophone playing in scene one, jazz and blues in scene two, Mozart, Latin-American dance, and so on… There was some lovely writing for a cappella voices, and the ensemble, under Wojciech Michniewski brought out the composer's many pleasing sounds and textures with aplomb."

The Independent, 29 May 2000

"The young British composer Roxanna Panufnik's new operatic adaptation of Paul Micou's clever novel The Music Programme presented some lushly attractive washes of sound."

The Daily Telegraph, 5 June 2000