Roxanna Panufnik

Genesis continues to work with composer Roxanna Panufnik

12 years after the Genesis Foundation commissioned Roxanna Panufnik’s Westminster Mass, which continues to be an international success, Roxanna Panufnik has become a composer in demand. Her 40th birthday year featured 18 premieres in nine countries. Among them is the latest Genesis Foundation commission, one of a trio of settings of a prayer by Saint Pio, “Stay with me Lord”, given its world premiere at Westminster Cathedral in London on 3 June 2008. We reproduce for you a cover article from the UK’s Classical Music Magazine by arts reporter Andrew Stewart.

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Roxanna Panufnik's Singing Beasts

Composer Roxanna Panufnik has completed her setting of three concert pieces based on Vikram Seth's animal anthology Beastly Tales from Here and There. The World premiere of The Frog and the Nightingale, an original story by Seth, was at the Bury St. Edmund's Festival on 17 May 2003. Paul Daniel, Music Director of English National Opera, conducted soloists Patricia Rozario, Yvonne Howard, and Roderick Williams with the City of London Sinfonia. The World premiere of The Hare and the Tortoise was given with the same cast and orchestra, conducted by Sian Edwards at Windsor Festival on 25 September 2005 and the following London premiere at the Cadogan Hall was broadcast by BBC Radio 3, as part of their “Hear and Now” programme.

Roxanna Panufnik's first Beastly Tale was a setting of The Crocodile and the Monkey, for soprano and orchestra, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and premiered by Patricia Rozario and the City of London Sinfonia in May 2002. Its success led the orchestra to commission Panufnik to set The Frog and the Nightingale.

All three Tales have been recorded and are available on EMI Classics.

Roxanna Panufnik says: "The book is a beautifully crafted and witty retelling by Vikram Seth of some internationally well-known stories and, as with 'The Frog and the Nightingale', a couple of new ones of his own. They are intensely musical and immediately conjure up kaleidoscopic images and textures; the orchestra is an ideal vehicle to bring them to life."

Roxanna Panufnik's biography