multitude of voyces

Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968)

Roxanna has a great love of world music – this has culminated in her Four World Seasons for violinist Tasmin Little, the world première of which was chosen by BBC Radio 3 to launch their Music Nations weekend, celebrating the London Olympics. Her Dance of Life: Tallinn Mass for Tallinn Philharmonic was commissioned to celebrate Tallinn’s year as European Capital of Culture.
She is especially interested in building musical bridges between faiths, and her first project in this field was the violin concerto Abraham, commissioned for Daniel Hope, incorporating Christian, Islamic and Jewish chant to create a musical analogy for the fact that these three faiths believe in the same one God. This work was subsequently converted into an overture for the World Orchestra for Peace and was premièred in Jerusalem and London under the baton of Valery Gergiev, in 2008, and performed at the 2014 BBC Proms. Her 2017 opera Silver Birch, commissioned by Garsington Opera, was met with great audience and critical acclaim.
2018, Roxanna’s 50th Birthday year, saw some exciting commissions and premières for the BBC Last Night of the Proms and a co-commissioned oratorio Faithful Journey – a Mass for Poland for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Poland, marking Poland’s centenary as an independent state. Roxanna is currently writing an epic work for the Rundfunk Chor Berlin plus nine other choirs from all over the world, to be premièred at the Berlin Philharmonie in May 2020.
Roxanna’s compositions are published by Peter’s Edition Ltd and are recorded on many labels including Warner Classics, Signum, Chandos, and EMI Classics. (Peters UK)