Roxanna Panufnik's Singing Beasts

Composer Roxanna Panufnik has completed her setting of the second in a series of concert pieces based on Vikram Seth's animal anthology Beastly Tales from Here and There. "The Frog and the Nightingale", an original story by Seth. The world premiere 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.

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".

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 has had a long and happy working relationship with the City of London Sinfonia since coming to wide UK and international attention with her Westminster Mass. Commissioned by the Genesis Foundation for Westminster Cathedral Choir on the occasion of Cardinal Hume's 75th birthday, the Mass was performed, and subsequently recorded, with the orchestra. Roxanna has dedicated "The Frog and the Nightingale" to the players and administrators of the Sinfonia - and to the singers, in thanks for throwing themselves so open-heartedly into the work.

The First Beastly Tale

The Genesis Foundation also supported the premiere tour of the first "Beastly Tale" composed by Roxanna Panufnik and premiered by the City of London Sinfonia.

Commissioned by BBC Radio 3, the music for the first tale was also inspired by and written for the text of one of the Beastly Tales by Vikram Seth, author of such works as the novels A Suitable Boy and An Equal Music among several others.

Roxanna completed 22 minutes of music setting "The Crocodile and the Monkey". It now has a companion piece in "The Frog and the Nightingale".

Roxanna Panufnik studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music and, since then, has written a wide range of pieces - opera, ballet, music theatre, choral works, chamber compositions, and music for film and television - which have been performed all over the world.

Highlights of her work include The Music Programme, an opera for Polish National Opera's millennium season which received its UK premiere at the BOC Covent Garden Festival; Private Joe, a work for baritone Nigel Cliffe and the Schidlof String Quartet; her critically acclaimed harp concerto Powers & Dominions; and Douai Missa Brevis for Douai Abbey. Commissions for 2003/4 include a ballet for English National Ballet and Wratislavia Cantans, a violin concerto for Daniel Hope and various chamber works.

Roxanna Panufnik's The Upside Down Sailor, with Richard Stilgoe as narrator and David Campbell's Soundwood Ensemble, has recently been released on the Black Box label. The CD also includes works by Rory Boyle and Martin Butler.

A CD of Roxanna Panufnik's religious choral works, with the Joyful Company of Singers, conducted by Peter Broadbent and Jeremy Filsell on organ was released by Warner Classics in September 2003. The CD also includes the re-release of Westminster Mass with the City of London Sinfonia and Westminster Cathedral Choir conducted by James O'Donnell.